Legends never die
by Black Moons Daughter
Summary: She lost her life. She lost her heart. In the end, she even lost herself. If finding a way to be happy means she'll have to destroy everything in her path, she will do so. "I know how that feels like." Indeed he knew. Maybe that's why fear is the only one who can help her. "Why are you telling me this, of all people?" "Because you are the one who actually cares to know."
1. Loosing myself

Light. That's the first thing that came to mind. It was bright red and hot. Painfully hot.

 _Make it stop..._

 _It's too hot...It hurts..._

 _I'm burning up!_

Violet eyes shot open as a pained gasp escaped her lips. But there was no red light. The only light was coming from the full moon in the night sky. It was a cool night. There was no source of warmth. No hot feeling. Just the soft autumn breeze. That's all she could feel. The wind.

 _Why I can't feel the earth under my feet?_

She looked around. She was floating in the air, several feet from the ground. She was going up as if reaching for the moon. She didn't panic, didn't try to move. She was calm, at peace.

 **Spirit of Legends, Angel Myth**

 _Who are you?_

She felt herself slowly float down until her feet softly touched the ground. Taking no further words from what she assumed was the moon, she looked around her. A forest ahead of her, an open field on the other side and burned pieces of what used to be a house. The place didn't feel unfamiliar to her.

 _Have I...been here before?_

Frowning in confusion, she slowly approached the burned remnants of the house, examining it curiously. She had a feeling that she knew this place, very well. Her foot bumped into a thing covered in ashes, though she could clearly see the reflection of the moonlight shining between the dark dust. Bending down, she tenderly picked it up and cleaned it with her palm. Though blurry from the dirt, it was obvious that it was a broken piece of mirror. But the person staring back at her wasn't her reflection. It couldn't be.

Her eyes widened in shock as she stared at the unfamiliar image before her. Her almond shaped, baby blue eyes were now a crystal violet and her, once light brown locks falling on her back were now black like the shadows in the corner of a bedroom, reaching down to her waist. Her peach skin was so pale she thought she was dead. But that wasn't all.

Touching her deep red lips, she discovered in utter shock that it was their natural color. Same with the black shadow on her eyelids and the black eyelashes. She was wearing no makeup. On her hair, resting on her forehead, was a silver, carved headdress, a deep purple pendant in the middle of it.

 _It looks like a crown..._

Dropping the broken mirror, she looked down at the rest of her clothing. Purple and black. That's what it was.

 _My favorite colors._

The dress she was wearing was a deep shade of purple, the straps hanging loosely off of her shoulders. Its skirt flowed just above her knees, and a corset was hugging her stomach, its purple right side fading to black on the left side. Simple black ballerinas were hugging her feet, purple strings wrapping around them and ending around her ankles. On her arms was a purple ribbon with little stones and a black string that coiled up to her shoulder. A necklace with silver chain and a purple teardrop stone was matching her headdress.

 _What happened to me before I fell asleep?_

A soft wind blew her hair to the side, a few leaves brushing against her face. She waved them off, absentmindedly. What got her attention though, was the black sparkles that momentary flew from her fingertips with that movement. She looked at her hand in surprise, examining it as if it was the first time she laid eyes upon it.

Biting her lip, she tried to imagine the same sparkles in her mind. The moment she had made a perfect picture of them, they appeared on her fingertips. This time, they stayed there, flickering and curling around her palm like playful children.

A small smile formed on her lips. Curiously, she shot them at a tree. The moment the sparkles made contact with the tree, they exploded in a rain of black crystal and disappeared. Angel laughed like a gleeful kid. Looking down at her feet, she cautiously stepped forward, testing the peculiar abilities once again. The moment her foot touched the ground, a black sparkling layer of crystal formed a circle around her shoe, designs of myths and legends she had once read about.

"This is amazing..." she whispered, eyes sparkling with excitement as she looked at her hand again. "Mark and Elly will not believe in their eyes!"

She froze, a look of shock and fear overtaking her previous joy.

 _Mark and Elly...why those names were in my mind?_

She unconsciously turned to face the burned house, reaching tentatively at it and softly touching what should have been a door. As if a surge of electricity had passed through her, a memory flashed in her mind.

 _"Mommy!"_

 _"Don't move, sweetheart! It's okay, mommy is coming!"_

 _..._

 _"Mommy, I'm scared! The fire is scary!"_

 _"I know sweetheart, I know-" A window shattered beside them, a scream was heard. "It's okay, it's just a dream. You'll wake up in your bed with your teddy and I will come to sing you to sleep. It's just a dream. You'll wake up safe."_

 _The smoke was burning her throat. She was too hot, the flames too close. She couldn't breathe. She clutched Elly closer to her chest._

 _"You'll wake up, you'll wake up-" The ceiling above them groaned and cracked. She closed her eyes and hid her face in Elly's hair. She mentally counted down to three. "You'll wake up, you'll wake up, you'll wake up!"_

 _She ran a moment before the ceiling came crashing down._

 _..._

 _"Angel! Elly! Hold on!"_

 _She coughed. "Mark!"_

 _He bent in front of her, just as she opened her arms to give him a crying Elly._ _"Take her and go!"_

 _"I'm not leaving you behind!"_

 _"Please save our child! I will be fine, just save her!" she cried out, her tears almost drying out by the temperature of the flames around them._

 _Mark shut his eyes and snatched the little girl from her, standing up. "I'll get you both out."_

 _He ran out of the house, through the flames. She watched him go, a smile appearing on her lips as her tears ran freely. "Thank you, darling..."_

 _..._

 _"Angel!"_

 _"Mark..." He had come back. "Mark!"_

 _"I'm coming, darling! Hold on!" He was running towards her. The walls around her cracked and protested, the flames hissed around her. She couldn't move her legs. Mark stretched his hand out at her. She tried to reach out to him, to take his hand. "Mark!"_

 _The walls fell apart. It was strange that she managed to make out his voice with all that noise._

 _"ANGEL!"_

She fell on her knees in front of the remnants of what used to be her home. She was breathing heavily, feeling her chest being squeezed by an invisible hand. She was staring wide-eyed at the ground, not really seeing it.

 _That fire...I couldn't have..._

 _I am...dead._

She looked at her hands, felt the dirt beneath her, the burned wood of the door. It was like she was never dead. But she had a peculiar power. The moon itself had called her Angel Myth, the spirit of legends.

 _Is this really the afterlife?_ Then it dawned on her. Her stomach dropped, a coldness overtook her body, her fingers trembled.

 _Where is my family? Where is my child, my husband?_

She knew it was stupid, probably even useless. Surely pitiful. But she couldn't think logically at that moment. Angel didn't even know when she had stood up.

"Elly! Mark! Where are you?! Elly!"

She looked frantically around, searching for something that wasn't there. She wasn't thinking, she wasn't acting by logic. She was only a mother, looking for her family. She had no reason to go searching for them into the woods. But she did anyway.

The silence of the trees swallowed every call and scream of hers. She was running between them, the world around her a blur. The more she ran and yelled without receiving an answer, the more desperate and frantic she became. Her heart felt like she was being squeezed to the point of suffocation, her lungs were burning, the back of her eyes stung.

She reached the outskirts of a town without realizing it. She couldn't recall its name, neither did she try to do so. She went to cross the church's graveyard, to reach the town faster.

A dog barked loudly. She yelped in fear and tripped over her feet, falling between the gravestones. As if not noticing the gloomy looking graves surrounding her, she struggled to stand back up, to search for her loved ones.

A choked gasp escaped her throat when her eyes fell on a gravestone a few feet away from where she was. Everything stopped around her. Feeling numb, as if dead inside, she stood and walked to the grave at a slow, hesitant pace. There was a chilling stillness around her.

 _Family grave, Mark, Angel and EmillyLudenberg._

 _Mark Ludenberg...died on 10.23.2013_

 _Angel Ludenberg...died on 3.23.2013_

 _Emilly Ludenberg...died on 10.23.2013_

Hot tears ran freely down her cheeks. Her face grew hot against the coldness that sipped into her body. A burning pain rooted itself in her heart and overtook it.

Her knees gave out and she fell on her knees in front of the gravestone. Her arms wrapped tightly around it, her cheek leaned against the side of it.

Her cry echoed through the silence of the night. She threw her head back, shut her eyes tightly and cried out at the sky. Her head fell forward against the stone, sobs racked her body. It hurt so bad.

 _They can't be gone..._

 _How could this happen..._

 _Please make it stop...stop this nightmare, please..._

 _Wake me up...somebody, wake_ _me up..._

 _Come back...don't go...do not leave me..._

 _..._

 _Death has fallen upon my family..._

Unknown to the mourning woman, the ground around her was slowly covered by a layer of black crystal that shifted and twisted itself, creating a dark form that kept growing and growing until it was looming over her. Tears drying out on her face, Angel slowly raised her head and faced the creation of her emotions.

She should have been scared, she should have tried to step away from it, or at least flinch at its presence. But she was perfectly at ease with it, instead. It almost calmed her sorrow.

It was just as she had imagined. A figure taller than 2 meters. Clad in a black cloak that floated softly around, giving off the impression that the figure was bulky. There were no visible feet poking out of the cloak. Big, black skeletal hands were poking out of the sleeves, no skin or muscle on them. Just black, bare bone. The hood was hiding the black skull that was its face. The holes for the eyes were filled with a deep amethyst colored light that looked menacing rather than calming. A long black scythe with a silver blade was clutched in its hand, its height overpowering the figure's. It was entirely made of her black crystal.

"The embodiment of death." she muttered as she slowly rose to her feet. She had to tilt her head up in order to look into his eyes.

The skeleton's expression changed into sorrow, sympathizing her. In a swift movement, he kneeled in front of her using the scythe to support him, his head bent low. Angel glanced at him, then at the gravestone of her family.

Her hand slipped inside the hood and touched the skeletal cheek. The figure in response looked up at her, its usual dead smile back on its face. She looked deep into the amethyst lights and whispered with all the emotion she had experienced from the moment she woke up.

"Reaper, is it strange that you remind me so much of my family?"

Reaper stared at her, taking in his new name and the sorrow of his mistress. When she smiled sadly at him, the purple lights turned into slits like closed eyes and tilted his head to the ground, as a soft breeze passed by, her hair and dress floating along with his dark cloak.

* * *

Angel found herself in the woods once again, arms wrapped around herself and unstoppable silent tears running down her cheeks. She was walking aimlessly around, not caring where she would go. Reaper was floating beside her, staring ahead of him at nothing in particular. Though still sorrowful, his presence was calming her enough to feel safe.

As they kept walking, and in Reaper's case floating, they passed some markings on the ground, resembling nail marks. Angel didn't notice them at all, passing over them.

Reaper did notice them. He sensed the dark aura beneath the earth, strong and menacing. He sensed a vicious power attacking and consuming a spirit, which was trying desperately to escape. What both confused and alarmed Reaper, was the fact that both the power and the spirit had the same aura. As if it was being self-destroyed.

"Reaper? What's wrong?" Angel had noticed that Reaper had fallen back and was confused to see him glaring at a spot on the ground, both hands clutching tightly the handle of his scythe.

Reaper looked up at her momentary, before returning his gaze to the ground. Having created him, Angel was able to hear and sense everything he said and felt. So, it was only natural that she felt what was the reason of his alarmed state.

But she wasn't in the state to decide what to do. She wasn't emotionally stable enough to keep calm. It was too early for that.

"What is this...?" she whispered, unconsciously taking a step back as panic started settling in her heart. The darkness down there was too strong, so much that it terrified her weak spirits. How much more she could take in one only night? How much more she was supposed to bear? She had just seen the grave of her family, herself included. Wasn't that enough for one night?

As if the power within the earth sensed her panic, it moved from its original spot and shot towards her. She could feel it approaching fast from underground. It was weaker than what she had previously felt, probably it had divided itself, but still very strong for her liking. Eyes widening in fear, her mind froze. She couldn't think, couldn't run. She just stood there, feeling the evil itself approaching hastily, hungry for her.

But she wasn't the only one that could sense this.

Reaper shot up in front of her, scythe held high above his head with a menacing glare on his face, ready to protect her. It was the first time that she felt so lucky and grateful to have this power of hers. In a way, it made her feel not so alone.

His actions snapped her out of her frozen state. Feeling the dark force right beneath her, the dirt she was stepping on being the only thing separating the two, she felt the instinct of survival kick in. Not knowing what exactly she was facing against, she raised her hands above her head, the black sparkling magic swirling around her palms.

"Stay away from me!" she yelled, thrusting her hands down towards the ground, her magic exploding from her palms and slipping inside the earth, leaving no trace behind. She could feel the dark aura back away and move frantically, taken aback by the unexpected attack. She didn't wait to see what happened.

She turned away and ran further inside the woods. She ran and didn't look back, a sparkle of security slowly creeping inside of her when she noticed Reaper flying beside her. She only stopped when the woods cleared out and her eyes were greeted with familiar bright lights.

"My town."

* * *

There was absolute blackness. Not even the tiny rays of light seeping in from the ceiling were visible. Not from where Pitch Black was fighting to escape. His own Nightmares had created a sphere of pure black sand, imprisoning him inside it as they steadily tore his soul apart in search of his fear. He had gained numerous bruises and small cuts in the process, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of having his worst fears come true, his very spirit being torn to pieces as if the same Nightmares he had created were now eating his soul.

Though it felt like he was being tortured like this for centuries, he knew it had only been a year. A whole year of non-stop torture and pain, both physical and mental, from his own creations. He didn't know for how long he could endure this.

Suddenly, numerous of the Nightmares around him simply...left. As if they were bored of him, they left the sphere. He could feel the change of weight on his body. Where they were going or why they left, he didn't know neither did he care to learn at this point.

As suddenly as they had left, all the Nightmares surrounding him stilled in their movement, as multiple surprised neighs echoed from the top of the lair. Pitch fell on the floor, his Nightmares all around him in their usual horse form, staring up at the ceiling. The Nightmare King raised his head with a big effort and followed their line of sight. His golden orbs widened at the sight.

A couple of his Nightmares were being pushed by a beam of what appeared to be black glass, away from the ceiling and the world above. Before they were able to regain their composure, the beam circled around itself and formed the shape of a stallion with its horseman.

There was an explosion of black sparkles and then a devilish, loud laughter that echoed around the enormous lair, bouncing off of every wall. The crystal stallion neighed loudly and stood on its hind legs, bright purple eyes staring the Nightmares down menacingly. On its back, the form of a headless, strong built man was producing the laughter, a sword made of the same crystal as its owner being held in his hand.

The Nightmares stood on their hind legs in surprise, before the horseman swung his sword and slashed through one of them, reducing it to dust. That seemed to snap all the other Nightmares in the lair out of their surprise as they neighed angrily and shot towards him, leaving Pitch alone to watch on the stone floor.

The horseman pushed his stallion on a full gallop, slashing at the Nightmares as if they were mere flies. Whenever a Nightmare would attack, he would immediately slash or stab them, shattering them. He ran around, chasing the ones that either tried to flee or guide him somewhere else, swinging his sword with the purpose of cutting off their heads. He would have succeeded if it weren't for the Nightmares turning to dust the moment his blade made contact with them.

At some point, he stopped his stallion and threw his sword straight at one Nightmare that was closer to Pitch, the weapon passing through the hellish horse and sinking into the floor beside Pitch's hand. The Nightmare King flinched at the sound the contact produced.

Now defenseless, the horseman turned his stallion to dive for the sword, while the Nightmares attacked him with newfound courage. But it wasn't as easy as it looked.

As dangerous the horseman was, so was his stallion. It reared on its hind legs, neighing and kicking out at the Nightmares with its front legs, occasionally kicking at the ones that dared approach from behind. The horseman held the reins tighter and dived with his stallion for the sword, his trusted friend hitting the Nightmares in its way with its head.

They landed a few feet away from Pitch and trotted towards the sword, the horseman prying it out of the ground with no effort. A movement of his shoulders to the side alerted Pitch that the peculiar creature was looking right at him. It didn't last long enough for Pitch to say something.

The horseman's attention turned back to the Nightmares, his stallion standing in front of the Nightmare King in a defending stance. The horses gathered together in a massive wave and rose high in the air, then dived for him. Instead of backing away or even preparing his sword, the horseman let out another bone-chilling laugh, his stallion standing on its hind legs. He raised his other hand in the air to show a black crystal pumpkin, a scary carved face on it. A purple fire, the color of the stallion's eyes was pouring out of its carved mouth and eyes.

With one last laugh, he threw the pumpkin at the Nightmares.

Being so close to their target and running so fast, the horses had no time to react. The pumpkin exploded the moment it made contact with the nightmare sand, the purple fire spreading all over the wave as terrified neighs echoed around the walls. The horseman stared at the result of his actions until the fire died out and the sand slipped deep into the lair, reaching out for the darker corners of it.

Pitch thought it was the first time that he was so surprised. He kept staring around his lair, unable to believe that a moment ago it was full of Nightmares. He almost didn't notice the tip of the horseman's sword lightly touching his cheek. His eyes snapped up to meet the invisible eyes of the headless man. Somehow, he knew that the man was examining him, probably considering whether he should kill him or not. Normally, Pitch would have tried to slip into the shadows or even call his Nightmares. But, at this point, he didn't dare to do any of the two. The reasons were simple. He had a sword touching his cheek, a stallion that could easily step on him staring him down, he was tired and slightly injured and his Nightmares would try to attack him again unless he regained control over them.

The stallion huffed and smelled him, simultaneously keeping its snout a couple of inches away from him. Seemingly satisfied, it snapped its head back and snorted. The sword was removed from the Boogeyman's face as the horseman turned his horse away and pulled the reins. The stallion shot in the air and galloped away from the lair and back to the earth's surface.

Ever so slowly, Pitch stood up, the sings of his previous torture starting to fade away. Feeling his body slowly fighting the pain back and the Nightmares keeping to themselves instead of re-attacking him, the only thing that remained in his mind was a simple question.

"What...?"

* * *

Angel wandered around the town, the streetlights illuminating her way. She had reluctantly decided to reduce Reaper into his original state of black crystals, having him return to her palm so as not to scare anyone who could be passing by.

Despite her aching heart after finding the grave of her family and the emotional exhaustion after everything that had happened that night, she was relieved to be around other people. She wanted to talk to the first human she would encounter, just so she could get rid of the loneliness that was growing inside of her.

Losing your family makes you realize how lonely you can be.

She spotted a group of girls walking down the street, chatting and laughing. Releasing a breath, she hadn't realized she had been holding, she walked over to them, trying to be as friendly as possible. She thought of asking directions for the nearest hotel, so she could spend the night, seeing that she had nowhere else to go. Paying for it would be a problem though...

She went to stand in front of them and cleared her throat awkwardly. "Excuse me, do you know where the hotel is?"

The only response she got was the girls passing by her, barely managing to jump out of their way before they fell on her. She watched them go with a confused frown on her face.

 _They didn't even see me...Did they?_

Looking around, she made her way towards a couple that was strolling around. She went to stand in front of the two, with no intention of moving away again. If they didn't want to talk to her, they could simply glance at her and walk around her, not right at her. "Excuse me, I am searching for-"

She jumped back, crying out in fear. She panted, a wave of fresh panic settling inside of her. Her hand trembled as she brought it up to feel her torso. Everything was as it should be, tangible and in the right place. With wide eyes, she turned to stare at the couple that kept walking away from her.

 _They...passed through me..._

She quickly searched for another human, spotting a group of teenagers. She made her way to them and reached out to touch them. As she feared, her hand passed right through them, none of them acknowledging her presence. She tried the same with another human.

And another.

And another.

 _How...why...? The grave...my name was on it...of course, I remember a few things from the fire, I died there...I had forgotten it after everything that happened today...how stupid._

She looked around her, feeling freshly made tears filling her eyes. Every person she saw made her feel more miserable.

 _They don't see me...or hear me..._

 _My family...now this... I'm destined to be alone... forever?_ She gulped, trying to swallow both her tears and her pain. Backing away from the road, she grabbed on the first thing she saw (in her case, it was the ladder of a fire escape) and started climbing up towards the roof. She couldn't spend another minute between people that would never even see her.

She sat on the edge of the roof and hid her face in her hands, allowing the tears to fall once more. As she kept thinking about her situation, more and more memories of her family would pop in her head, intensifying the pain and multiplying the tears.

A warm breath against her cheek made her turn and look up. The sight of a headless man atop a stallion, both of them made out of black crystal, greeted her eyes. A look of amazement passed over her eyes before she recognized her own doing on it. Slowly standing to her feet, she looked up at the horseman, through her tears. "I sent the Headless Horseman to protect me against a force I didn't know of?"

It was more of a statement than a question. Nevertheless, the Horseman jumped off of his horse and kneeled respectfully in front of her, his horse bowing its head.

She looked at them for a long moment, a tiny warm sensation returning inside of her. At least she could create some friends, even if they were infamous legends of children's stories.

And suddenly, it dawned on her. This power of hers was able to create mythical creatures and legendary figures, just as the Moon had told her. The spirit of legends. The title probably meant that her job was to create myths and stories for people to entertain themselves with or something sort of that.

The thought made her scowl. Not only she had lost her family, but now she was turned into a spirit with a job to do while enduring the loss of her loved ones and the loneliness of having no one to even see you. It made her heart harden to the point where she lost a whole part of her. The happy one.

She brought a hand to the Horseman's shoulder, making him stand. "Rise, Headless Horseman. For we have..."

She turned around and glanced at the face of the moon high in the night sky, eyes narrowing dangerously. The wind around her grew stronger and harsher, whipping her dark hair around her face violently, like long tendrils of darkness enveloping her in their sinister clutches, leaving only her purple orbs to shine with hate in the middle of the darkness.

"...a lot of work to do."


	2. It has begun

_10 years later._

Even though Christmas was still eight months away, North's workshop was as busy as ever. Yetis were occupying every bench available, making toys like machines, elves were running around, trying to help, only to end up on top of one another or stuck in a box of toy parts.

North himself was in the process of carving a piece of wood into a soldier riding his horse. Magnifying glass in front of his face, he worked expertly on the little details of the toy, smoothing it and blowing the peelings off of it.

"That's good..." he murmured in concentration, placing the figurine on a wide table beside a group of twenty other similar figurines. The small army came to life and charged forward, finding an enemy in the face of a poor elf that had been carrying a plate of cookies across the table.

North laughed like a gleeful child as the elf fell off of the table's end with the army turning into a herd of eagles and flying up in the air.

"Next time, it should be flying dolphins!" he exclaimed as the wooden birds came back to settle on the table.

As North went to collect his working tools, a low vibration started spreading from the floor up to the ceiling. The whole workshop was shaking, the vibrations growing stronger and stronger until the shaking got so violent that even North had a hard time staying on his feet. Toys were falling off of the tables, wooden planks were groaning in protest, elves were struggling to escape from under the fallen yetis.

North managed to get a hold on one of his swords after a lot of trying, keeping his other hand free to grab onto anything for support. He got out of his office and stumbled into the globe room, sword at the ready. This vibration was not an earthquake. It was something more powerful than that. His belly was never wrong.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the vibrations and the whole shaking stopped altogether. Complete silence fell over the workshop, an unsettling stillness settling in. North didn't let his guard down. His eyes scanned the room for anything out of the ordinary until he spotted a light on the globe. A light that was slowly turning black.

"What-"

With a deafening 'bang', jets of black crystal shot out from various parts of the globe, coming from invisible holes. The black crystals took different shapes, varying from winged monsters to four-legged beasts, all of them black, shiny and with glowing purple eyes.

The creatures attacked the workshop, spreading out to every corridor, every door, every bench. A lion with the head of a beautiful woman and eagle wings on its back swirled around the globe and settled on it, watching the events unfold in front of it.

North charged at the creatures, slashing through them as they passed. Despite the damage he gave them, the creatures didn't so much as glance at him, moving past him to the corridors. They didn't seem to care about the yetis or the elves either. The only thing they were focused on was the workshop.

Everything they touched was turning into a black crystal. Every toy, every room, even the floor, were turning black and hard like glass. The only exceptions were the elves and the yetis. Apart from occasional shoves from the monsters and a few minor hits some unfortunate elves received accidentally, the workers of the Pole were alright, yet terrified.

North turned to charge after them, not so willing to let them turn his workshop into a twisted jewelry. The lion-lady on top of the globe noticed his tries and growled lowly, alerting all her other comrades. As North raised his sword with a battle cry to strike another monster, something pulled at his sleeve and pinned it, along with his arm, to the floor. The man turned in surprise to see that his sleeve was being restrained by a black, crystal arrow.

Several feet away from where he was, on the second floor, a man readied another arrow and fired it, pinning North's other sleeve to the floor as well. The man was made of black crystal like his companions, his body from under the waist being four horse legs.

The man fired another two arrows at Norths pants, restraining him completely before he jumped to the first level and galloped to North's side, a hoove on the sword beside the struggling man and another ready arrow pointed at the spirit's face. The creature fixed him with a hard glare and stayed in its position, not moving a single muscle.

"What are you doing to my workshop?! Why are you doing-" North didn't get to finish his question, as the lion lady let out a deafening roar that echoed around the enormous building.

The dark creatures snapped their heads up at the sound, staring intently at her. A moment later, all of them, the half man half horse included, leaped towards the globe, turned into their original united form of black crystal wave and swirled around the globe and slipped out of the window on the ceiling.

The arrows restraining North disappeared, leaving him staring dumbfounded at his now black crystal workshop. The only things that were left untouched were the globe and the control panel.

The yetis and the elves slowly approached the spirit of wonder, looks of confusion and fear settled in their eyes at the sight of the workshop totally immobilized.

North held his sword tightly in his hand.

"Another meeting in less than fifty years can only mean a lot of trouble."

* * *

"Are you kidding me, mate?! Again?!"

"Bunny, calm down. Surely North has-"

"Tooth, I have only three days before Easter and two million eggs to prepare! And North calls us now. Again! Are we seriously going to do this every ten years?!" exclaimed Bunny, his ears twitching in irritation.

"This is a very serious situation, Bunny! I know it because-"

"If it's about your belly again, I'm outta here. I don't care if you were right last time, but-"

"Whoa, you guys arguing without me?" Jack flew in from the ceiling window, completing the group of Guardians. The two elder Guardians didn't seem to notice him, even after his playful remark. As he had more or less expected, Bunny was arguing with North about the time he had chosen to call them all, three days before Easter, Tooth was giving directions and duties to her fairies and Sandy was...well, he was looking around the workshop with an astounded expression.

"Hey Sandy, what are you looking at?" he asked as he came to stand beside him. Sandy looked at him incredulously, before the image of the workshop appeared in the golden sand above his head. Jack frowned in confusion.

"Why? What's wrong with the work- Oh...wow..." Jack's eyes widened at the sight of the workshop. Looking at it more carefully than before, he could clearly see a layer of thick crystal over the colorful walls and furniture. Every toy and corridor were covered by crystal, even the floor. He hadn't noticed before, but now it was very clear.

"Uh...guys?"

"I am not risking to miss Easter again, mate, that's for sure!"

"Guys...?"

"This could be even more serious than last time. I know that we are facing something very powerful!"

"GUYS!"

The Guardians of Hope, Wonder, and Memories turned to see an annoyed Jack and a slightly pissed Sandman.

The winter spirit took a calming breath and gestured around the workshop. "Haven't you noticed the workshop lately?"

Confused, Tooth and Bunny took a look around them, dumbfounded looks appearing on their faces when they noticed the crystal. "What's all this crystal about?"

North pointed a finger at Bunny's nose. "That's what I was trying to tell you!"

Tooth zipped around uneasily. "North, what happened here?"

North's voice dropped in a loud whisper as if fearing for any spies. "Someone attacked my workshop with black crystal. Jerks of it came out of the globe and became strange creatures."

Jack frowned. "Black crystal?"

Bunny hopped over. "What do you mean strange creatures?"

North kept going. "They covered the workshop with the crystal you see now and then left."

"So Pitch is back, sooner than last time..." grumbled Bunny with a scornful look.

"It can't be Pitch." Tooth interjected. "Last time it had taken him centuries to rise again. Now he is back after only ten years? It doesn't make sense."

"Tooth has a point, but I have my doubts. This looks very much like Pitch..." North voiced his thoughts, his fingers smoothing his beard.

Jack leaned against his staff. "Wait, you said that the workshop was covered in black crystal. So, how come we can see its colors?"

North shrugged. "I don't know. It stayed black for a few moments and then the black color faded away and made what you see now."

The voices faded away after that, the spirits falling in deep thought. Certainly, an attack from a black force resembled Pitch's doing too much, but not completely. Had it been Pitch, he would have destroyed the workshop or simply alarm North without bothering to cover the workshop like this. And, as Tooth had mentioned, it was indeed too early for the Boogeyman to be back. There was something else they were facing this time.

Sandy tugged at North's sleeve to get his attention and created a series of images above his head.

 _'What did those creatures look like, you said? Were they horses?'_

North rubbed the back of his neck, a sheepish look on his face. "Well, not really...They were different from each other, some of them were like birds, others like animals...Ah, there was a man with the body of a horse! And a winged lion with the head of a lady."

Sandy seemed even more confused than before, just like all the others. Apart from Jack, that is.

"I know that lady!" he exclaimed. "Sphinx, the big statue in Egypt!"

The others looked at him in surprise, Bunny speaking first. "Wait, what does that mean?"

Jack made a 'hold on' gesture with his hand up before flying away. Three minutes later, he returned with a thick book in his hands. Despite the thin crystal layer that covered the book, the winter spirit managed to open it and find the page he had been looking for.

Then, he started reading.

"Egypt: a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Meditteranean country-"

"I know what Egypt is, show pony!" Bunny scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I was talking about that Sphinx you said."

Jack smiled and dropped the book to a nearby armchair. "Benefit of flying. I get to see all the tourist attractions. I saw that statue a few months ago when I was looking for new places to make snow. It was a lion with wings and the head of a girl. Heard a few tourists calling it 'Sphinx'."

North frowned. "Why would Pitch or anyone else create a myth like that of the Sphinx and have it as a pet?"

"You were going to bring snow to Egypt?!" Bunny yelled in exasperation at Jack, who simply shrugged.

"I make plans." he smiled playfully.

Sandy clapped enthusiastically to get everyone's attention. Then the image of a half man half horse appeared above his head, followed by a word.

Tooth read it over. "Centaur? You know this creature, Sandy?"

Sandy nodded. _'People in Greece teach ancient history about heroes. This creature exists in their lessons as a Centaur. A few children have dreamed of these.'_

Jack sat on the control panel, scratching his head. "So, Pitch decided to use legendary creatures this time?"

"I believe we will know very soon." North smiled, looking up at the moon, who was slowly casting its light inside the room. Jack moved out of the way, allowing the moonlight to fall on the center of the floor.

Ever so slowly, the shadows shifted and formed the shape of a woman in a dress, long curls moving with a non-existent wind.

Jack voiced everyone's thoughts. "Who is that?"

The shadow of the woman raised its hands above its head, a black wave following her movements and standing over her head. From the wave jumped different strange creatures, two of them coming to stand at her sides. To her left, a headless man was waving his sword on top of a horse standing on its hind legs. To her right, an intimidating, tall cloaked figure was holding an enormous scythe with a skeletal hand, the hood barely masking the skeleton underneath.

Bunny's eyes widened at the fearsome creatures. "This is too much trouble."

North gave him a look. "Sounds familiar?"

As the shadows disappeared and Manny moved his light away from the workshop, the Guardians were left at a loss for words.

"So...what now?" Jack asked, seeing the troubled looks on his friends' faces. The tooth fairies accompanying the spirit of Memories had started chirping around her after having stayed silent from the moment they came at the Pole. Tooth didn't seem to listen to them.

"I tell you what now." North stood to his full height, a look of determination in his eyes. Bunny groaned. "We go searching for that spirit. Any strange black creature you see means that she is near. We find her and make her stop whatever she is doing. Because, my friends, if we don't and my workshop stays as it is..."

They all looked to see a sparkle of worry flashing in his usually joyful eyes.

"I won't be able to deliver Christmas presents for centuries."

* * *

"Toby, stop pushing me!"

"Run faster then! You're falling behind!"

The blonde eight-year-old willed her legs to move faster as she followed her older brother and three other friends into the woods. The last child of the group, a brown-haired boy, stayed in front of a tree with closed eyes, counting to ten. Once he was done, he turned and started looking for his friends, not seeing the pair of violet eyes watching him from directly beside the tree he had previously been.

Angel smiled at the sight. The sound of their laughter felt like music to her ears. The innocent smiles, their excitement for adventure, their careless nature. She missed seeing all those small things that create the picture of a child. They reminded of her own child.

The thought alone was enough to wipe the smile from her face and make her eyes darken. Her hand clutched the skirt of her dress so tight that her already pale knuckles turned even whiter. She shut her eyes firmly, forcing the ache in her chest and the burning of her eyes to fade away.

 _Not now...not again...I can't do this now..._

Inhaling deeply from her nose, she slowly opened her eyes that sparkled with a newfound determination. Knowing where her target was, she willed a wave of black crystals to surround her and transport her to the small creek of the forest. She stood behind a tree, not that the kids would be able to see her, and watched the kids picking hiding spots while the brown-haired boy was trying to find them.

Concentrating her powers on the kids, she searched inside them for the right fantasy. During her short time being a spirit, she had found out that she wasn't only able to create and bring to life famous legends and mythical creatures, but she could also look inside every person's mind and see their biggest fantasies to make them real. She always enjoyed seeing what others could make with their imagination, no matter the number of dark fantasies some of them had.

Smirking to herself, she made a ball of the black crystals and willed it to shape into a little girl the size of a palm. Slowly the girl grew in size until she was a bit taller than the kids. The moment her creation was done, its colors changed to the ones the brown-haired boy had imagined. She became a pale blue, her long hair flying around her face, her nightgown floating around her legs. She had no mouth and no ears, her bright yellow eyes lacking any irises.

Angel motioned with her head towards the boy and let the ghost do the rest while she watched from her hiding spot.

The ghost floated soundlessly behind the kid and waited.

"Geez you guys have been practicing!" he laughed, turning around to go to the next tree. But when his eyes saw two yellow orbs staring back at him, he yelped in fear and fell back on the ground. His heartbeat quickening, he stared up at the peculiar being, frozen.

The ghost tilted its head to the side, its hair moving in a soothing, slow dance. Seeing that the thing wasn't in a bad mood, the boy slowly relaxed and examined it more carefully. Recognition didn't take long to settle in his eyes.

"I...I know you. You are the invisible friend I used to have when I was five! You are Silence, right?" he asked, the hints of a smile visible on his still surprised face. The ghost, named Silence by the boy, nodded softly.

The boy jumped up in joy, the smile now wide on his face. "I knew it! I knew mom wasn't right! She said you weren't real because she couldn't see you!" His smile fell after a moment, eyes filling with remorse. "I'm sorry I forgot about you...I thought that was what mom wanted. But now, I swear I will always think about you, so you can come and visit me! Can you forgive me?"

Silence nodded again, adding a slow blink of her eyes. The smile returned full force on the kid's face, making Angel's heart flatter in hope. Meanwhile, the other kids had started to leave their hiding places to see why their friend was talking to himself.

"Ben, to who are you talking to?" Toby asked him, looking around curiously.

"To my friend, Silence. Remember when I told you guys that I had an invisible friend when I was younger?" Ben explained excitedly, looking between Silence and the others. His friends frowned.

"Ben, there are no invisible people."

"You said yourself that your mom told you so."

Ben's smile threatened to disappear at their words. He turned to look at Silence, who only shrugged and winked at him. His smile remained.

"You're right guys. I was just joking." His friends laughed and teased him before they returned to their game. No one saw Ben smiling knowingly at the ghost and whispering. "I will think of you again when I go back home. We can spend time together then. Now I have to go play with my friends. You will be my secret."

Silence's eyes moved as if she were smiling and she spun around herself happily, her hair wrapping and unwrapping around her. Ben laughed and turned to run to his friends, giving her a small wave as a goodbye.

Angel decided to leave her hiding place and stood in front of Ben, her heart beating fast.

 _He saw her...Any moment now...This time, I will-_

Ben ran back to his friends, passing straight through her.

A shiver ran down her spine as the hopeful look faded from her eyes. She turned to stare at the way the boy had left.

 _Why? Why can't you see me, the way you see my creation? Why you can see my power but not me?!_

Her hands balled into fists, her voice containing painful anger. "What am I doing wrong?!"

Silence softly placed her hand on her mistress' shoulder, offering what little comfort she could. The touch calmed Angel down, if only just barely, allowing the bitter sadness to drop the mask of anger. With a heavy sigh, the spirit turned to her ghost and let a small smile grace her features. "We'll have to keep in mind when he will imagine you again, right Silence?"

The ghost bowed its head before Angel turned it back to black crystals and returned it into her being. Looking up at the sunny sky of Australia, she made up her mind about her next destination and made a Pegasus from her crystals. Jumping on it, they flew up in the sky, heading back home.

Despite her being a spirit for less than a year, Angel was a fast learner, a quality that helped her adapt to her new life quickly. She hadn't only managed to figure out how to control her power, but she had also grown stronger, thanks to the children who believed in her creatures. After discovering that she was able to see people's fantasies, she would try to bring their fantasy to the real world and use it to gain believers. It was her only way to approach the potential believers.

In a way, it worked. The children could see their fantasies the way Angel made them, but they never seemed to be able to see her as well. Plus, the fact that each child could only see his or her fantasy made things difficult for the spirit of legends. Seeing something that your friends couldn't see was tough for the kids, causing most of them to force the fantasy out of their head and therefore making themselves unable to see her creations anymore. Ben was one of her lucky cases.

At this point, she could only hope that somehow, the children's belief to her creatures would include herself as well.

Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't realize that she had led the pegasus to Burgess' cemetery. The crystal horse sniffed the grave of her family once, bowing its head low as if feeling its mistress' emotions. Angel looked at the gravestone from her place on the winged horse, her previous thoughts replaced by emotions she had been keeping buried within her for months now.

The wind blew a little colder around her, causing the ends of her hair to flow along with it when she lowered her head. Her black locks fell like a curtain around her face, shielding her from the world as clear liquid pain ran down her right cheek.

* * *

"I am back, everyone. Did you miss me?" she called out as she walked along the corridors of her new home, the pegasus right on her heels. From the dark corners of the black crystal halls, multiple pairs of shining purple eyes moved towards her as her minions walked forward to welcome her. She frowned up at the few streaks of setting sunlight slipping inside her home and flicked her wrist. The crystal layer on the ceiling shifted to a different position, the light reflecting on the different parts of it, creating the lighting she needed to see all of her main hall.

She smiled at her creatures and petted the pegasus on its neck. "Go rest with the others, Orion."

The pegasus snorted and left her gazing at the crystal globe in the center of the room, her fingers brushing longingly against the bright lights. All those children believed in the Guardians, but none of them believed in her. It made her feel very lonely. And that was a very dangerous thing for her. Being alone, feeling alone...was something she should never have to experience, yet here she was.

One of the lights shone brighter than the others, making her feel even more alone. The light was Ben. Who still believed in her servant instead of her.

She shot out her hand, releasing a massive wave of black crystals from which emerged Silence, made out of black crystal and eyes shining purple. The ghost turned to her mistress, expecting orders.

"Go to your child. He is calling out to you." Silence bowed her head and shot out of the entrance faster than the wind. Angel sighed, trying to smile.

 _At least I have a new member to add to my companion club._

She turned to look back at the globe, coming face to face with a skull.

She yelped and took a step back, staring at her very first minion with wide eyes. The embodiment of death smiled the way only a skeleton would smile, shoulders shaking under his cloak as his laughter filled the room like the chilling whispers of the dead calling out to the living.

"Damn it, Reaper, don't sneak up on me like that!" she exclaimed, fighting back the urge to laugh along with him. The Reaper stopped laughing a moment later and pointed with his free hand to the ceiling, where the light had turned from the orange of the setting sun to the silver of the moon.

Angel raised an eyebrow. "Nighttime already? How quickly time passes...Oh well, it's time for a night walk around town. The other spirits might have come out already."

Summoning Orion once again, she rode out of her home and up to the night sky. To her right, the Reaper and one of her Harpies were flying beside her, while to her left, the Horseman laughed his signature roaring, chilling laughter on his neighing horse, the Fury beside him flapping her wings excitedly. Their reactions put a smile on Angel's face, even though she knew that the only excitement they would get was the one they got every night.

The excitement of watching a child sleeping and a town clear of people.


	3. A shot in the dark

Orion's crystal hooves clanked against the cement of the roof he landed on. Angel had chosen a building close to the center of the town to start her night. She slipped off of the Pegasus's back and reduced him to crystals with a wave of her hand.

She gazed out at the sleeping town, feeling the peaceful silence. Hopefully this time, she would be luckier than the other nights. She didn't bother to turn to acknowledge her other servants, who landed behind her. "You know what we are looking for. Make sure to visit the house of a child that has just lost a tooth. And be on the lookout for dream sand."

She finally turned to face them, focusing on the two females. She addressed to the tall woman with the dragon wings. "Fury, you go find a tooth and follow one of the tooth fairies. Surely they have a nest where they keep the teeth."

Fury smiled a crooked, broad smile, her long sharp fangs shining in the moonlight. "They won't notice me before I return to report." She flexed her claws of her abnormally long fingers and scratched the roof with her eagle feet to emphasize her words.

Angel nodded, turning to a human-sized eagle with the head of a woman, long curly hair framing her face. "Harpy, you accompany Fury. Make sure she doesn't get caught."

Harpy's response was a flap of her long wings and a soft eagle cry. Fury walked up to her and threw an arm around Harpy's feathered neck, her jaw-length hair being hidden by Harpy's long one. "Do not worry, mistress. We won't fail you."

Angel nodded with a small smile and watched them fly away. She looked over her shoulder. "Reaper, with me. Horseman, distract any unwanted attention."

Then, she wrapped herself in black crystals and left the roof to reappear in a child's room from the shadows.

The moment she saw the sleeping child, she was reminded of her first night as a spirit. How she had longed to see her daughter and how she found out the truth. It wasn't fair.

 _Why? Why my child? Why not this one or another one?_

Why indeed? The bitterness that followed her for so many months was coming to the surface just now, because of her first time watching a sleeping child. Why did her child have to die so young? The child in front of her was older than her daughter, at the age of eight. Her daughter was only five years old. Why did she have to die? Angel had sacrificed herself to save her daughter, only for Elly to die shortly afterward? It shouldn't have happened. She should have been there to help her baby. But no, now she had to watch other children live their lives while her baby was buried in a cold cemetery.

It made her void of emotion and sick to her stomach.

"I almost don't see the point." she muttered to Reaper, who had reformed beside her. Her loyal servant looked at her in confusion.

Taking her eyes from the girl in the bed, she walked around the room while dragging her fingers over the child's things. "Why am I here? Unseen, destined to do what I can without even taking some credit. Why should I even try? It's not like I have any reason to live, even as a spirit. Whatever I do..."

She stood in front of a drawing hanging from the wall, the girl's family portrayed on it. She brushed the tip of her finger softly over the child and the father. "...it's always the same."

She scoffed at her own thoughts, willing herself to stop feeling. It was true, she had no reason to live. But if she were forced to live like this, then she would make a purpose for her. She would make a reason to live. She turned to leave from the window. "I'm talking nonsense again. Come on Reaper, we'll go to another ro-… Reaper?"

Death himself was standing at the foot of the bed, his back turned to it as if he weren't interested in the asleep girl. His gaze was focused on a specific corner of the room, engulfed in shadows. He was staring intently at the darkness with his unwavering gaze as if daring whatever was hiding inside it to make a move. His hold on the massive scythe was so strong that had he any skin on his knuckles, they would have turned white. Even the ends of his cloak had stilled in place instead of their slow floating movement. To have death himself be restless about something was, to say the least, unsettling.

But not for Angel. Had she been herself before her death, she would have certainly felt her body getting drenched in sweat, or she would even have gulped nervously. But, losing everything changes people.

She slowly approached her creation and stood just behind his shoulder, simply to be safe. Her hand came to touch his shoulder. "Reaper, what is it?"

The skeleton was ready to make a motion with his hand when he snapped his head up and looked frantically around, searching for something. His expression was one of surprise Angel had never seen before. Calmness wavering the tiniest bit, she looked around the room, not knowing what she was searching for. Whatever Reaper had seen it was very dangerous if his so out of character behavior was anything to go by.

She had scanned the whole room with no results when her eyes fell on the sleeping child. She didn't know how she hadn't noticed earlier that the girl was whimpering in her sleep.

Raising an eyebrow in confusion, she looked more carefully around the girl, searching for the cause of her distress.

 _Why is she so nervous? Is her dream so awful that-_

Then it dawned on her. She was so stupid for not realizing this sooner... There was no golden light, no golden sand above the girl's head. She wasn't having any good dreams. What was really happening, though, she couldn't know. The darkness was thick enough to hide whatever was making the girl so distressed.

Angel covered the distance between her and the bed, coming to stand by the side of the headboard. Her eyes widened upon seeing the normally golden sand above the child's head, being a totally different color than it was supposed to be.

The sand was black.

The spirit held herself back from touching the nightmare. No matter how fascinating it appeared to be, she wasn't about to disturb its job. A few looks between the nightmare and the child gave her the time to put two and two together. After all, rumors were spreading around the spirit world as fast as in the mortal one.

The Boogeyman was back.

Angel hadn't heard his name, if he had one, that is. Maybe that was the reason she wasn't unnerved by her discovery. Or maybe because she had never seen the extent of his power, neither the man himself.

Or she simply liked it.

Seeing this kid, this girl, having a nightmare...put a sinister smile on her face. She had completely forgotten the morning's events. The only thing she could think about now was the torture of this soul.

 _My baby is dead...Why? Why the other brats get to live and my Elly doesn't?_

 _Why do I have to suffer alone, with no family for eternity? Why endure this torture for as long as I live?_

 _I haven't done anything to deserve this. And I am sure neither have you, little girl. But...it's a cruel world, isn't it?_

 _Why not suffer with me? None of you believe in me, you all ignore me to the point I suffer._

 _Well, you deserve this nightmare then._

The crazy smile was stretching so much on her face that her cheeks ached. She knew she hadn't gone crazy yet, but she would be damned if she said that seeing others suffer with her, even for different reasons, satisfied her.

As the nightmare continued its job, she brought her hands up and slowly clapped. She clapped and laughed, a chilling, abnormal laughter. Her eyes gleamed in sickly pleasure, the slow clapping echoing like the cracking of a whip around the silent room.

Angel's actions stopped all at once when a golden blur passed by the window. It took her a moment to get over her momentary surprise, before she dashed at the window, looking out at what she recognized as the famous wisps of golden sand. Her eyes narrowed and her lips formed a smirk at the sight.

"At last..." she murmured under her breath, turning to address her loyal companion. "Reaper, stop staring at the closet and follow me. I don't get a chance like this often."

The black crystals gathered around her feet before she jumped out of the window, transforming into Orion beneath her, who snorted loudly and flew away with her.

Reaper hesitated in front of the closet he had sensed the threat hiding in, his eyes momentary darting to the window Angel had jumped out of. Knowing better than to disobey his mistress, especially after her previous display of sadistic satisfaction, he made his decision quickly. He floated up to the window, glanced warily one more time at the closet and slipped out of the window, following his mistress.

Moments after his departure, a shadow slipped out of the closet's cracked open door, slowly moving to the girl's bed. From the darkness of the room, a figure made of shadows emerged in front of the whimpering child. Two eclipses trapped inside the eyes of the shadowy man examined the nightmare of the child in mild curiosity and amusement. Slowly, a pale grey hand came out of the dark, brushing a long finger against the black sand with fatherly tenderness.

"Mildly interesting." A voice like silk, adorned with specks of a British accent echoed around the walls of the bedroom. "A new addition to our little group, with a unique taste for nightmares. I'm strangely at a loss."

The man's memory recalled the haunting figure who had accompanied the intriguing woman. The figure who had sensed his presence and silently kept him from attempting anything towards its mistress. Although the rare substance of its existence and the kind of weapon the shadow was very familiar with weren't things that went unnoticed, what really caught the man's attention were the cloaked figure's eyes.

Those glowing purple eyes, with no irises or pupils, much like the eyes of his nightmares. He could never forget the first time he locked eyes with that exquisite shade of purple. The night he was freed from his endless torture by a creature carrying the eyes of bright amethyst.

The eclipses in his eyes turned their focus on the window. "Was it you, who chased away the nightmares, my dear?"

The silence that answered his question brought a small crooked smile on his face. "I guess I'll have to find out."

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Angel was seated on Orion's back and gazing up at the golden wisps of sand. She couldn't deny that the sight was beautiful. She tentatively reached up with her hand and touched the wisp closest to her. A golden puppy jumped out of the sand, barking happily and hopping around her in a playful mood before dashing towards its appointed child. The spirit sighed, almost melancholic.

Reaper popped into her peripheral vision, tilting his head questioningly. She glanced at him, then at the golden wisps and motioned with her head. "Go. You know what to do."

She watched as Reaper shot up in the air and followed the traces of golden sand until he was out of sight. Taking in the peaceful town around her for the first time that night, she turned Orion towards the woods and let him carry her high in the sky.

As the pegasus followed its mistress commands through the reins and slowed down from a gallop to a calm trot, she took the rare chance to look at the face of the night from such a close proximity. The beauty of the bright stars shined in her dark colored eyes, calming her tortured soul. She always liked the night better than the day. It was the contrast between the darkness of the sky and the light of the stars that fascinated her the most. The only time when dark and light, evil and good, could exist together in perfect harmony. The absolute balance of the world.

Those rare moments of peace were interrupted by a sudden, harsh wind that whipped her hair across her face, blinding her. "What-!?"

Pushing her hair out of her face, she glanced around to see where had that come from. Orion pointed out the cause with a stomp of one of his hooves in the air. Following his lead, Angel looked up to see a figure gliding through the clouds. It was a teenage boy with brown pants and a blue hoodie. White snowy hair and no shoes. A staff in his hand.

The tips of her lips curled upwards. She had found Jack Frost, just like that?

 _How lucky I am tonight..._

She guided Orion behind a cloud and watched from behind it. The winter spirit soared through the sky some more before diving to the earth below. Reaching a frozen lake, he skated effortlessly on its surface with his bare feet, his staff leaving a trail of beautiful designs behind the boy.

Angel smirked at the sight. It wasn't hard to guess that this lake was a very important piece of Jack's life as a spirit, maybe even his own home, even though the legends she had sent to the Pole had already informed her that the white-haired brat had a room of his own in Santa's workshop.

 _So, Frost has a soft spot for Burgess? Very convenient._

And risky too. Her home was well hidden in the woods, but that didn't change the fact that it was very close to Jack's playground. The risk of the winter spirit finding out her hideout was very high.

Seeing the boy standing by the lake to admire his work gave her the opportunity to come up with her next move. Silently, she guided Orion to the woods, just a few feet away from the lake and dismissed him. Then, she casually walked out of the woods and towards the lake, pretending not to have noticed the winter spirit. Just so she wouldn't look suspicious, she sat on the cold from the melted snow ground and simply gazed at the lake.

Finally, Jack seemed to notice her. "Huh? Taking a midnight walk miss? While I have no problem with that, you will most likely catch a cold without something warmer."

She turned to acknowledge him with a polite smile. "I appreciate the concern, but I am good, honestly."

Jack jumped back in surprise, eyes widening. "Wait, you can...see me?"

Angel held back a smirk. Apparently, the young spirit had originally thought that she was a mortal woman. "Don't act so surprised, dead people like ourselves usually stand out."

She could tell by his expression that he was even more surprised than before. "You mean...you're a spirit, as well? I thought it was only us."

She raised an eyebrow, feigning confusion. "Us? There are others?"

Finally, his easy-going smile brightened his face. "Of course, there are. Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth fairy, the whole group is real. We are called Guardians, protectors of children more or less."

The right corner of her mouth curled upward. "And, I'm guessing you are...Jack Frost?"

"The outfit gave me away, huh?" he said, spreading his hands to reveal more of his clothes. Angel decided to stand up since Jack seemed to be at ease with her and the cold ground was bothering her backside.

Crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her head to the side, she gave a sideways smirk. "More like the fact that you've been standing on the frozen lake this whole time barefoot."

He laughed and flew over to her, standing on top of his staff. "You're funny. You should meet the others, they could use some fun in their lives. Besides, I can't do that all by myself."

She frowned, genuinely this time. " That's because you are the funnier of the group, I presume?"

"Sort of. My center is Fun, so I am the one who brings fun to others." He saw her frown deepen. "I know it sounds weird, I had the same look when North, Santa, explained it to me. Basically, every spirit has a power and a center, something like the deeper meaning of your power's existence. I bring winter, which is fun for the kids, so my center is fun. Same goes for the others. Bunnymund's center is Hope, North's is Wonder and so forth."

Angel took a moment to think the new information through. She wondered how she had never heard that before. "Let me get this straight...I understand all your centers, so Sandman's center is dreams and Tooth fairy's is...teeth?"

"Close enough. The teeth hold the memories of their owner, so once their tooth box is full, it's the perfect memory album. I was able to remember my mortal life by a look in my tooth box."

Jack's explanation struck her like lightning. Her friendly face fell into an expression of utter shock as the gears in her mind turned to make the connection. She hadn't known before that teeth hold memories. Had she known from the beginning what Jack had told her... Had she known that the teethbox shows the memories of the person the teeth belonged to...

 _If I get my memories, I will know exactly what happened that night. How the fire started..._

 _...And if I get Elly's and Mark's memories..._

 _I'll learn how they died._

"You okay there?" She snapped out of her thoughts at the sight of a hand being waved in front of her face. Looking to the side, she saw Frost staring at her with a worried expression on his face, no longer standing on his staff. She quickly tried to smile. "Sorry, I was momentarily surprised to hear that about the teeth. If that's true, then I will be able to see my memories as well?"

His smile returned full force. "Sure, you will! You want to remember how you died, right?"

She slowly nodded. "Yes. I have a few flashes about it, but not even a clear picture of it."

The winter spirit floated in midair. "No worries! I'll take you to Tooth to give your tooth box!"

She quickly shook her head. She had heard more than enough by now and she couldn't risk going to the Tooth palace as a friendly neighbor. It was time to end this. "No need to rush, Jack. I'm sure she is very busy, especially this late at night. I'll go tomorrow. And I hope to see you there as well."

He nodded. "Be sure about that! But, wait, how are you going to find the place?"

She turned around and started to leave. "I have heard rumors better than geographic directions. I will find it."

She was almost inside the woods when he spoke again. "I didn't catch your name!"

She smirked to herself as she entered the woods. "You will, next time."

After walking a few feet away from the lake, she conjured Orion and quickly got on his back, urging the Pegasus into a full gallop, not risking to fly and have Jack see her. She bent low to avoid the tree branches since the horse was so big that if she decided to stand straight on it, she would gain some good bruises from the trees.

It wasn't long before they reached a small river falling from a mini version of a waterfall. Orion wasted no time and shot towards the center of the waterfall and to the entrance of a cave right behind it, his wings providing a form of a shield from the water for his mistress. Once inside the cave, they ran until the hard-rocky surface of the cave walls was replaced by thick layers of black crystal. That was the main entrance to her home.

The main room was bigger than the globe room in North's workshop, twice, maybe thrice as big. The walls were covered entirely in black crystal, while from the ceiling were hanging enormous crystals resembling stalagmites. In the center of them, moonlight was falling from a small, single hole right on a human-sized crystal globe with the sparkling lights representing the faith of children.

The rest of the main room was even more beautiful. Straight ahead from the globe were stretching several bridges connecting the platform, on which the globe stood, with the furthest wall of the cave, on which were carved colorful portraits of every legend and myth was ever heard. Each bridge ended on a different portrait, creating a complicated set of bridges. Twenty feet under the bridges was the natural cave floor, no crystals on it. Right and left from the platform were a pair of crystal staircases leading to four separate small houses in the shape of crystal pieces, containing two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Not that they were needed to a spirit, but Angel wanted to feel as close to her mortal past as possible.

She got off of Orion and sent him off to the other horses hiding between the crystals. Rubbing her temples with a sigh, she walked over to the globe, flicking her wrist to move a few crystals on the ceiling and reflect the moonlight so as to enlighten the room a bit more. She ran her eyes over the lights of Europe, lost in her thoughts.

The knowledge of the teeth's abilities was an information she hadn't thought of at all, though she couldn't deny its value. With the boxes of her family, she could finally calm her soul by finding out what really happened to her husband and daughter.

 _Come to think of it, I am a widow. Awful word._

 _Is there a word for a mother who has lost her child?... I don't think there is._

 _A word for both maybe?... I can't think of any word to describe a mother without family except from..._

 _Dead._

 _Yeah, that's the right word..._

A loud screech had her turning her head towards the entrance of the cave to see Harpy and Fury flying inside the room. Fury landed on top of the globe in crouched down position and let out a loud beastly cry that echoed around the cave walls.

"Fury, stop showing off." Angel deadpanned, rolling her eyes.

Fury flinched, a sheepish smile on her face. "Sorry mistress. I couldn't help myself."

Harpy flew up on a crystal of the ceiling and gave a small screech of her own. Fury got the message and turned to address her mistress again. "We found the Tooth Palace, mistress. It's inside a mountain, southwest from here."

Angel nodded, a small smirk forming on her lips. "Good job. We will be sure to pay Tooth a visit very soon."

Fury bowed her head and flew over to Harpy just as Reaper entered the cave from the hole in the ceiling. The skeleton landed gracefully in front of her and kneeled before her, showing clearly more respect than the two females now resting on the crystal above.

A short mental communication between the two informed her that Sandman lived on a cloud of golden sand right above the center of Europe. She nodded, her smirk widening. "I expected nothing less from you, Reaper. I will keep the information in mind."

As Reaper bowed his head and left, Angel made a mental list with all the information she had collected.

 _Teeth boxes can show the memories of the person the teeth used to belong to. The Tooth palace is in a mountain, southwest, Sandy's castle is on a golden sand cloud above central Europe, North's workshop is at the Pole and out of the way, I already know that Jack has a room there plus he likes to visit Burgess' lake._

 _So, the only one that remains is..._

A loud growl echoed around the walls as a big hellhound ran inside the cave, stopping right in front of Angel and bowing its head. Behind it, half a dozen more hellhounds followed the first's example. Angel petted the leader's head. "What have you found?"

The answer she received was ears dropping back and a small whimper. She frowned, her hand slipping off of the crystal surface of its head. "Nothing? How could you say that?! It's been months now!"

Seeing no other reaction from the leader hellhound, she started pacing up and down the platform, her anger boiling slowly inside of her. She had sent the hellhounds to find the Warren at the same time with a bunch of other legends who had been sent to search for North's workshop. Within two days, she had the location of the workshop and time to form a plan about how to use the information, but there had been no news of the hellhounds till now. And the worst was that they had returned barehanded, figuratively speaking.

Her anger caused the crystals on the ceiling to shake momentarily with a loud rumble. She spun to face her servants and slashed the air with her hand. "This is unbelievable!"

The hellhounds flinched, their ears dropping even more as she walked closer to them. Her temper was making both them and the rest of the myths uneasy, even a little afraid. She stood in front of them, her eyes sparkling with barely contained anger.

"Eight whole months and you haven't found it yet?!" Another ramble of the crystals above. "It can't be invisible! Are you sure, you've done a good research?"

Seeing the suspicion on her face, the leader hellhound rushed to explain.

 _Yes, we looked everywhere, to houses and forests and mountains and rivers and to all the holes._

Angel perked up. "Holes?"

The hellhound nodded. _Yes, holes. No matter how small._

"Holes!" She slowly turned to the globe, smiling at a raven that had sat atop of it and scratched under its beak with a finger. "Did you hear that Munin, dear? All this time, they were looking for a small bunny."

She couldn't help herself. Having seen exactly how Bunnymund looked like, she just couldn't help it. She laughed.

She closed her eyes, threw her head back and burst out laughing. Her laughter bounced off the walls of the cave, ringing around the room louder than church bells. Her servants relaxed immediately and laughed along with her, filling the room with all sorts of screeches, cries, neighs and other sounds. Even the hellhounds were barking happily.

Angel bent forward and wrapped an arm around her stomach, still laughing her head off. No one really noticed when her laughter abruptly stopped as she peeked through her thick hair at the hellhounds with narrowed eyes.

"FOOLS!" she roared furiously, throwing her fists in the air. All the noise was cut short, with the exception of a collective whimper from the hellhounds, who leaned away from her with a flinch, tails between their legs.

"Useless! Out of my sight, NOW!" her scream followed an attack of black crystal waves that hit the herd viciously, sending the hellish dogs in different directions. Angel kept throwing waves of her power at the hellhounds, no matter how much they tried to run away from the platform and search for a cover inside the cave.

Only when all of them had managed to get cover and stay out of her sight did she release her final blow on the cave floor with a growl. Complete silence followed after, giving the cave a dead aura.

Sighing the last bits of her anger away, she dragged herself towards the globe and conjured a throne to throw herself into. She rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger, feeling tiredness crawling inside her system.

"How pathetic...My own creations humiliated me." A faint clip-clop approached her throne slowly, making her look up. The Headless Horseman had returned from the town, having made sure that she and the other myths had returned safely without the unwanted attention of the Guardians.

"Horseman..." she sighed, giving him her hand which he took after climbing down from his stallion. "You are my last hope."

The Horseman kneeled in front of her, still holding her hand. "Search to the ends of the earth, for a bunny bigger than a human, with blue-grey fur and two wooden boomerangs."

Her servant stood up immediately and got on his stallion. Angel shot her hand towards the exit of the cave just as the stallion started galloping away. "Go! And don't disappoint me."

Silence fell once again around the cave. Angel leaned her head on the back of her throne, contemplating whether some sleep would help with the tiredness she was feeling. Looking around at the crystals of her ceiling, she spotted a raven peeking at her from behind a crystal. She slowly raised her hand.

"Munin, come here. Come on, my beauty, don't be afraid. I am too tired to do anything either way." Her soft tone won the bird and it flapped its winds to sit on her knuckles. Angel brought a finger to the raven's head and ran it softly down the bird's neck, watching it close its eyes and rub its head against her fingertip.

"Do you think this place is lonely too?" she mused.

The Nightmare snorted at the sight before turning away from the hole it had been spying from and galloping towards the deeper parts of the woods. Unknown to it, one of the hellhounds had smelled it and was swiftly following behind. When the Nightmare disappeared inside a hole, the hellhound stopped in its tracks and slowly climbed down the hole, staying close to the exit just in case.

The Nightmare galloped into a great room with cages hanging from the ceiling and to a tall man standing in front of a globe. The man's silky voice chilled the air even more as the horse reported. "How interesting."

The hellhound growled lowly and shot out of the hole, heading back to its mistress.

* * *

 **I decided to use lyrics or titles from songs for chapter titles. Starting with this, the chapter title is the title of the theme song for chapter 3 of my story. It's called A Shot In The Dark, by Within Temptation.**


	4. Don't look at the eclipse

"How did this happen?! That horse, as you say, was so close to us, you sensed it and no one else did?! Half of my myths are practically hanging from the crystals on the ceiling and none of them noticed it?!" The crystal creatures recoiled in the shadows in fear, watching warily their mistress throwing a tantrum.

And with good reason. A giant cavern full of mythical beings shouldn't be easy to spy on and yet, she was now being informed that another spiritual deity had learned everything that had taken place in her cave the moment she had stepped inside it. She felt the tiny pieces of black crystal swirling around her fingers, her feelings seeping into her magic and threatening to act on impulse.

A few screeches were heard as her creations tried to find a place to hide, the hellhound in front of her laying on the floor with its tail between its legs and ears dropped down, not daring to try and leave, no matter how much it wanted to. She stared at its fearful position for moments that felt like centuries before she inhaled deeply through her nostrils to calm herself. The crystals disappeared from her hands.

"What can you tell me about that spirit?" she asked in a much calmer voice than before. The hellhound visibly relaxed, the tiniest of bits, slowly standing back up and twitching its ears the slightest bit. The tail, though, remained fearfully between its hind legs.

 _It was a very dark spirit, mistress. It lives in a hole, deep underground. His lair is too dark, maybe even more than yours. From what I could see, he wears black clothes and his skin is...grey._

She frowned, confused. "Grey skin...So, we have the opposite of the Guardians, in a way. That might not be as a big problem as I had thought..."

 _If only I knew who he is..._

"Anything else?" she crossed her arms over her chest, raising a criticizing eyebrow at the close to trembling creature before her.

The hellhound looked to the ground for a moment, replaying its brief moments in the dark spirit's lair, before looking back up at her.

 _One more thing, mistress. That black horse, his servant, was made of black sand...but it had golden eyes._

Angel's eyebrows shot up into her hairline. The description was mildly familiar to her. In fact, she had seen something similar to what the hellhound was saying just a few hours ago. A similar horse, in a smaller size, galloping above a child's head in the place of a pleasant dream.

 _Both creatures were made of black sand, one of them was giving that child a nightmare... Except if...if those horses were nightmares. It would explain the golden eyes if nightmare sand conjures dream sand..._

The hellish dog shifted on its paws, looking nervously around, but not daring to move away yet. Realizing that she had been lost in her thoughts, she reached out and placed a gentle hand upon its head, stroking it. The creature winced at first, thinking that it was in danger, before it leaned against her touch, its tail wagging behind it. She motioned with her head further inside the cave, where the other creatures were residing. "You did well. Go to your pack."

With a small lick to her fingertips, it dashed towards the darkness to meet its friends. Angel walked slowly over to her throne and seated herself on its arm, her feet resting on the seat. She rubbed her temple in an attempt to ease the rushing, irrelevant thoughts running through her head.

 _If those nightmares were originally golden sand...then it is very possible that the new addition to the group isn't very likable from the Guardians' perceptive... But, it's too soon to assume anything of the sort..._

She glanced up to meet the ever sneaking Reaper standing in front of her with a curious expression on his face. She studied his face and gave him her command. "You must be on the lookout for any other spies of that man. Now that he knows where I reside and what I am being occupied with, I expect from him to attempt something very soon."

 _Though, I don't know what._

Reaper nodded stiffly, comprehending the severity of the situation. She turned her eyes to the dark parts of the ceiling and spoke to the cave and the rest of the residents. "This goes for all of you too. Don't let anyone spy on me again. We don't want anyone to ruin the surprise now, do we?"

Cries and screeches of enthusiasm echoed around the cave walls, creating a havoc that hardly bothered the woman in the center of it all. Her servants were rejoicing over the upcoming action that was to happen soon and their mistress could only smile evilly at their eagerness, her amethyst orbs shining brighter than all the others in the inky darkness of the cave.

* * *

The sun was high in the sky, shining brightly upon the earth and warming up the parts of the ground that were still cold, thanks to Jack Frost's constant visits in Burgess. The green of the woods was more vivid than any other time, a few colorful flowers here and there adding to the beauty of nature.

Around the recently placed tables were gathered numerous children, some with their parents, some without. Some knew each other, some others didn't. The one thing they had in common, though, was the purpose of their arrival in the middle of the woods. After all, the Easter Egg Hunt was an event that few kids didn't care to miss.

As more and more kids were arriving at the start, a good few feet away from the preparations, a stallion huffed impatiently behind the trees as it eyed the place around it suspiciously. The Horseman bent forward and patted his horse gently on the neck to calm it down. He could understand the stallion's behavior.

Two days. It had been two days since his mistress had sent him to find the Warren, but he had found nothing valuable, let alone the Warren itself. He couldn't and wouldn't return emptyhanded, but he was running out of time and he knew it very well. Even though his mistress had never mentioned a time limit, he knew that she had postponed her visit to the Tooth palace those past two days until his return and he knew that there was only so much she could accept.

Sensing the slightest bit of change in the forest's aura around him, the Horseman scanned the woods with his non-existent gaze, searching for the oversized bunny. As the egg hunt started and the first eggs were discovered, the stallion huffed once more and stomped the ground with its front right hoof. The Horseman turned to the direction the horse had shown him and spotted a bluish patch of what appeared to be fur between the many leaves of a bush.

If he had his head, anyone around would have seen him smile. Pushing the stallion forward, he trotted behind the retreating form of Bunnymund, which included entering a secret tunnel behind him. The Horseman knew that it wasn't a wise decision to take so long for him to find the Easter Bunny, but he knew that the sure place to find him would be the egg hunt.

A few moments of following Bunnymund around brought the Headless man inside the Warren, somehow without getting the attention of Bunny. At the end of the tunnel, he stood in the shadows to remain hidden and examined the colorful nature of the Warren. A branch breaking under the stallion's hoof was enough to alert Bunny. Before the Guardian of Hope was ready to turn around, the Horseman turned his horse and shot through the tunnel, out of the woods and into the sky, galloping to inform Angel about his success.

It wasn't hard to find her. She was leaning against a tree at the end of the woods, gazing lazily at the playground a few feet away from her. Since her last failed attempt to make children believe in her, the number 739 on the list of failed attempts, she had simply settled for her plan to be complete, so she had no reason to try anything with those kids today.

The Headless Horseman brought his stallion to land beside her and bent down to whisper in her ear. Angel's unmoving lips slowly curled upward as the Horseman finished his report. She kept looking at the kids ahead of her. "You had me worried with all this wait. But, as always, you've met my expectations."

She pushed herself off of the tree she had been leaning against and turned to face him. "Well, better not let our little fairy wait anymore. Go and tell the others to not be late."

The smirk still present on her face, she brought two fingers of her right hand to the ends of her skirts and slowly dragged them up to her collarbone, her touch leaving a trail of her black crystal that spread all over her body before breaking into tiny pieces that shot up in the air as a small wave of shining black. The Horseman stared at the wave before he turned his stallion and galloped towards the cave to fulfill his task.

* * *

"Jack, are you sure about this? You don't even know her name." Tooth flew around Jack nervously, her wings flapping a bit faster than usual.

"I had told her about my center being Fun before I asked her name. I think she refused to tell me so she could amuse me. Really Tooth, there's nothing to be worried about. From the little that I know her, she doesn't look like a threat." he smiled an easy smile, leaning against his staff. Tooth glanced around at her busy fairies, not less uneasy.

"Still, it's been two days since you said she would visit. Doesn't that look a little suspicious to you?" she asked, bright magenta orbs turning to meet his icy blue ones.

"Yes, Jack. Doesn't that look a little suspicious to you?"

Both Guardians turned with a gasp to one of the higher platforms of the Tooth Palace, where there weren't any fairies, to see none other than the woman herself standing on it and gazing down at them with what appeared to be an easy smirk. The winter spirit smiled at the sight of her, chuckling at how easily she had sneaked up on them. The woman beside him, as well as all the other fairies, was anything but happy to see the new spirit.

"So, you finally decided to come?" he asked, flying up to her level. Angel spared Toothiana a last glance, hiding the satisfaction of seeing the fairy so nervous, and turned her attention to Jack. "I apologize for my lateness. I was trying to gain a few believers and lost track of time. Yes, Jack, for two days. Being a spirit makes the time seem less and less important."

He passed a hand through his hair, a knowing look on his face. "Tell me about it."

The dark woman turned to the other Guardian, noticing that the mini fairies were eyeing her warily, just like their mistress. She offered Tooth one of her best, fake smiles. "I also apologize for entering without knocking, Toothiana. I couldn't really find the door."

Sensing no strange auras around the new woman, Tooth allowed herself to relax and smiled sheepishly, rubbing her arm with one hand. "Don't worry about it, there is no door anyway... I am so happy to not be the only girl around here anymore! You can call me Tooth."

Angel chuckled as the fairy flew up to her level beside Jack. "I guess we will become good friends then, Tooth. So, this is where all the teeth go? I could never imagine..."

Tooth's eyes brightened. "Yes, here we keep everything. You can't imagine how much work we do every night."

Angel nodded. "I have a small idea. Jack made sure to inform me of a few things about teeth, though he did so quite poorly."

"Hey!" Jack complained, getting between the two. "I am not an expert on teeth, but I explained how they work pretty clear to you."

"That's what you think-Oh, hello." She gave a polite smile at the three mini fairies that decided to examine her face from a shorter distance. The three little fairies welcomed her with squeals and flew around her head, some of them even touching her raven hair. Angel forced a laugh out of her throat. "Curious creatures, I see. They act like you, Tooth, if not a bit more... openly."

Tooth bounced in the air. "You could say that they are a part of me."

"That's the best way to describe them." she commented, a flash of black just out of her peripheral view making her eyes widened the slightest bit. "I don't believe I have introduced myself to you still, have I?"

The two spirits were caught off guard, seeing that they had forgotten about that little detail. "Uh, yeah...you haven't."

"How silly I am..." She smiled and looked up at the fairies around the palace, raising her voice and catching their attention. "Everyone, I am Angel Myth. Nice to meet you all!"

The fairies and the Guardians present returned the smile and greeted her the best way they knew of, too distracted to see the two-headed crystal lion sneaking inside the palace, along with other peculiar creatures, and hiding between the rocks.

"Myth, you say?" Angel turned at the sound of Tooth's voice, seeing that the two spirits had frowns on their faces, the previous smiles now gone for good.

 _You're getting close, aren't you?_

She smiled innocently. "Yeah, that's my name."

Jack took a small step forward. "What's your power, Angel?"

She couldn't help it. Maybe it wasn't even needed anymore. Either way, the excitement to see all their previous friendliness falling apart was too much for her to keep up her act. Her smile twisted so much that she looked like something right out of hell. "Why, my name answers your question, Jack. I bring myths and legends, all the stories people read to each other, in life."

Every creature inside the palace drew back in shock at the sudden change in attitude. The gears in the two Guardians' minds started turning at last, eyes slowly widening in realization. It made Angel all the more excited. She turned to the side and placed a single finger on the golden surface of a pillar, slowly dragging it down to reveal the trail of black crystal slowly spreading over the gold. "Does this look familiar?"

Now the two were a few good feet away from her, in fighting positions. The fairies around the palace were flying frantically around, trying to find refuge. Jack spoke first. "What do you want?"

Angel smiled widely at his unfriendly tone. "That's a very easy question, with an even easier answer to guess, Jack. Why don't you find out by using your mind, for a change?"

Jack narrowed his eyes into a glare, his grip on his staff tightening. "Believers."

"Bingo!" she chuckled, snapping her fingers for emphasis. "I have to thank you, Jack. Without your help, I wouldn't have had the chance to come here so easily, let alone have so much fun by messing around with you."

Jack's glare slipped to a look of regret as her words reminded him of Tooth's uneasiness about the new spirit. How he had brushed it off, assuring her that there was nothing to be worried about. How stupid he was.

Tooth flew a couple of feet forward, looking bravely Angel in the eyes. "What did you do to North's workshop?"

The dark woman laughed, tilting her head to the side in an almost playful manner. "Why, the same thing that I'm going to do to this palace, dear Tooth. Change of management."

At the last sentence, a massive crowd of black crystal creatures jumped out from behind rocks on every side of the palace and ran around the place, snarling and growling at anything that stood in their way, scaring away the mini fairies and creating a havoc. The two Guardians were caught off guard and knocked to one of the lowest platforms, away from Angel. Until they managed to stand back up, the mythical beings had already started covering the palace in black crystal.

Tooth flew up to stop them but was blocked by a wave of other beings, clearly there to make sure that their companions did their job without interruptions, who attacked her. It wasn't something she couldn't handle, smashing a lot of them into tiny pieces that faded away, but the amount was too big for her to reach the others who were ruining her home.

Jack was shooting beams of ice all around him, hitting most of the creatures. To his surprise, though, it was taking him more than a single hit to actually destroy them. They weren't like black sand, like Pitch's nightmares. Those things were something stronger than that.

Glancing up to find the source of those beings, he saw Angel on the back of a Pegasus smirking down at him. He glared up at her in return.

"Have fun, Guardians! This is only the beginning!" she laughed chillingly before the Pegasus dived in the void and flew away, leaving the two spirits to the mercy of the other monstrosities.

In all that havoc, no one noticed the two-headed lion sneaking away with three tooth boxes.

* * *

Chimaira ran in the air, her body bending and stretching with her legs as she made her way over cities and countries, heading for the Burgess' secret cave. Her lion body was leaping easily over rooftops, carrying her at a fast pace towards her destination. Her two mouths were holding two tooth boxes, a third one being held in her tail.

Chimaira visibly relaxed at the sight of the familiar town of Burgess and further away, the woods. She was close. In a matter of minutes, her mission would be complete. She ran on a roof and leaped off of the edge, going for the road.

A flash of black crashed to her side, sending Chimaira on her back to the pavement below. She growled in discomfort, clutching the boxes tighter than before. Rolling back up to her feet, she looked around, her senses on high alert.

"Such a peculiar creature you are."

Chimaera's two sets of ears perked up at the bodyless voice, the lion head looking right and the goat head looking left. Sensing the hungry for fear darkness rising, she bared her claws and made for the woods. Before she was more than a couple of feet away from the street, the snake that was her tail hissed warningly. The beast turned abruptly and brought her paw down on the head of a black horse, the hit destroying it to sand.

"Smart beast..." The voice echoed around Chimaera as her heads spotted half a dozen horses made of black sand closing in on her from all sides. They glared at her with bright golden eyes, huffing, and snorting. "... Are you afraid?"

A tall man clad in shadows stepped out of the dark and came to stand behind the horses, smirking smugly at Chimaera. She kept backing away, looking around for any small opening she could find to escape. But, as the nightmares kept coming closer and her back hit a solid wall, she had nothing else to do than lean away from them, hind legs bending and ears dropping down in fear. The man chuckled. "That's what I thought."

One by one, the nightmares ran at her, crashing against her heads and body, making her stumble right and left. Chimaera whimpered in her throats, the snake replacing a tail coiling fearfully to itself. Another nightmare came at her, bumped its head against her goat head so hard that the tooth box fell from her mouth and rolled to the street with clinking noises.

Chimaera froze when she realized what had happened. Before she was able to launch at it, a nightmare snatched it with its mouth and swallowed it. Chimaera's heads looked around at the other nightmares, her three sets of eyes settling on the man in charge of them. He still had the smug grin on his face, only now he looked more pleased than before, the nightmare with the tooth box in its belly standing beside him.

Realizing what the man was after, Chimaera crouched down and adjusted her legs at a better position. She looked at her opponents with newfound determination, refusing to fail her mistress. With a simple tip of her lion head and snake, she swallowed the other two tooth boxes, keeping them safe in her stomach. Then she growled at the nightmares, daring them to try anything with her.

The nightmares were taken aback by the sudden actions of the beast, looking at each other in confusion. Pitch himself was surprised as well. But, he wasn't someone who would give up so easily.

"Take the rest."

It was only a murmur, but it was enough to settle the nightmares in action. They neighed loudly and charged at her, all at the same time. Chimaira herself roared loudly and attacked, landing on the back of a nightmare, while her heads grabbed two others by the neck and her snake bit another one on the nose. The nightmares screeched as they turned to sand.

Chimaira had regained her courage. She was lashing out at the horses, biting, scratching and hitting them, clawing her way towards the one nightmare with the tooth box in its stomach. The nightmare turned to flee when she knocked another horse out of her way and leaped in the air, landing in front of the nightmare. The horse screeched loudly and backed away, its comrades coming to its rescue and blocking Chimaira from reaching out to it.

Seeing that she was outnumbered by far and that she was taking too long, Chimaira roared threateningly at them one last time and shot out towards the woods, disappearing between the trees. Pitch glared at the spot where the beast had disappeared, his hands balled into fists. "You let it escape."

His nightmare approached him hesitantly and dropped the tooth box from its mouth to his hand. Pitch glanced at the face that was drawn on it and allowed his frown to morph into a crooked smile. "But maybe, you took the most valuable of the three."

* * *

 _Where is she anyway?_

Angel kicked a rock with her foot, sending it into the small river. Chimaira should have returned by now, and yet she wasn't here. The spirit sat on a big rock by the riverside, her chin resting on her hand. This delay was unnerving her more than she would like to admit. Thankfully she had thought to meet up with her servant somewhere away from her residence, so as to avoid having the Guardians find out.

 _If she isn't back in five minutes, I will send someone to look for her._

She glanced down at her reflection on the river's surface, examining absent mindedly her looks. Ten years after the end of her mortal life, she still couldn't help but compare her current self to what she originally was.

 _Is it really a good change? Or is it just a facade of something darker?_

Her hands reached out to the fresh water, fingers lingering a moment longer inside the cool embrance of the liquid before cupping a small amount and splashing it to her face. She tipped her head towards the sky, keeping her eyes closed and feeling every single cold droplet that ran down her throat to the lines of her collarbone and the curves of her breasts.

Her eyelids opened tentatively, her orbs glancing at her reflection. It was the same as before. Nothing had changed, not even the makeup on her eyes and lips, which was a part of her from the moment of her spiritual birth. She almost felt disappointed at the result.

 _Why did I expect something different? It's not like I knew what I expected._

A low growl had her looking up at the trees surrounding her. The surprise on her face turned to relief when she spotted the familiar two headed beast approaching her. She stood up swiftly and stroke its heads, her signature smirk returning. "What took you so long, Chimaira?"

The beast looked into its mistress' eyes and explained with telepathy what happened. Angel's smirk turned to a frown as Chimaira's story came to a conclusion, taking the two tooth boxes in her hands. "Only two...I see."

Chimaira bent her heads in embarrassment, then the snake reached up to Angel's ear and hissed softly. The spirit's eyes widened a small fraction at what she heard and gave the beast a silent command. Chimaira nodded and left as fast as she had arrived.

Angel's eyes turned to look behind her at the darkness of the forest, her crystals wrapping around the boxes in her hands and consuming them, teleporting them to her cave. She stayed at the same place, unmoving and silent, waiting for something to happen. When she didn't notice anything unusual, she slowly started walking away, her mind drifting momentary to the boxes.

 _My tooth box is missing. But at least I have the two most important..._

 _But will I be able to handle what the teeth will show me?_

She felt a squeeze at the pit of her stomach at the thought.

"Your fear has such a unique taste, my dear. Pity, I have tasted so little of it."

She froze in place, a small devilish smile overtaking her features. She turned around and spoke to the darkness of the woods. "Fear? You say I am afraid, yet you are the one who is hiding."

A moment later, she was forced to back up against a tree at the close proximity of a pair of eclipse golden eyes that appeared out of nowhere in front of her.

"Is this better?"


	5. I do my best

No matter how easy it was at this proximity, Angel made sure not to examine the unique eyes that stared at her as if they intended to burn two holes in her skull. She just focused, instead, on staring right back in a way that challenged the man before her to try anything funny. She had to admit though, that part of the reason she focused on giving him this challenging look was to hide her own discomfort and stiffness because of how close to her he was. Their bodies were barely separated by a breath of space and the fact that his sudden appearance in front of her had made her take a step back against a tree trunk made her very much aware of how trapped she was between him and the tree. Not that she would ever acknowledge it.

She chose to hide the negative feelings with a coy smirk, instead. "My my, someone doesn't like to be called a pussy."

The grey skinned man seemed like he wanted to greet his teeth but chose to settle for a comeback that had a dark tone of warning that almost made Angel regret her choice of words. "Since you are obviously new around here, let's clear this out, milady. I never hide in the dark."

If it were possible he leaned even closer to her rendering useless her effort of leaning further away from him and more against the tree. Their noses were almost touching now as he whispered in a voice so calm and deep that seemed to make the night around them even darker. "For I _am_ the darkness."

Angel wasn't able to comprehend how she had managed to hide the cold shiver that ran down her spin from him, but she had obviously succeeded, otherwise she was sure that he would have thrown a smug smile her way. The dark aura around him made the hair at the back of her neck stand. Her gut was screaming at her that this spirit was trouble she didn't want to get into, but that wasn't all. She had a feeling that she had been in his presence before. It hadn't anything to do with the description her hellhound had given of him, no. It was this aura, this radiating feeling of a creature waiting for its prey to show the slightest sign of weakness as a cue to strike. It was something she had felt before. Still, she was a woman who faced her fears by challenging them in their face. Most of the time, anyway. "So the darkness has no idea of what 'personal space' means?"

This time, the smug grin appeared on his face. "Uncomfortable, aren't we?"

"More like annoyed to be coated in your breath." Her uneasiness was turning into irritation so fast she didn't know if she should be glad about it or not. She placed a hand against his chest, pushing the realization of its firmness to the depths of her mind for the time being, and pushed. He didn't even budge. She raised an eyebrow in annoyance. "Move."

"Nah."

"Why?"

"Don't have a reason to."

It was one thing to have an angry and dangerous man threatening you and another to have a smug man playing with you. Her eyebrow twitched the slightest bit, though she was sure that he noticed at this close proximity despite pretending not to. Her hand pressed a bit harder against his chest. "I can easily give you a reason."

She prepared to collect a handful of her crystals to push him away from her when, as if sensing her intentions, the darkness surrounding them started taking shape. Little by little, horses dark as the night and eyes of pure gold emerged from all around the two, glaring and huffing at the sight of her. That all too familiar feeling, which she had momentarily forgotten, came rushing at her.

"Oh, there it is..." the shadow whispered tauntingly. "Recognition, at last."

 _I don't remember that Nightmare to be this big...Or this dangerous looking. Definitely not very Guardian-like._

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You were there. You put one of those...Nightmares in the dream of the child I visited that night."

The man smiled wolfishly, eyes sparkling with amusement at the memory that entered his mind. "And what a delight it was to see someone, a spirit nonetheless, actually clapping at my work! Cheering for a creature giving an innocent child a good midnight scare. Aren't you a strange little thing?"

 _Little thing?! Are you kidding me?!_

Her glare intensified more. "This strange little thing is only half a head shorter than you and is growing sick of your habit of spying on her."

Actually, she was growing sick of this whole situation. She couldn't stand people who thought they could taunt without any consequences because they underestimated her. If there was anything that could flare her anger more was his very next words. "Short-tempered, I see. It's been a while since we had a fiery presence around. I'm getting a little excited."

Angel gritted her teeth. That guy was getting on her nerves so easily it was ridiculous. Plus, her back had started to protest from the continuous contact with the tree behind her. She wanted to whip that arrogant smile clean off of his face, not caring about the warning her hellhound had given her, but she couldn't think of anything to say that would-

 _The feeling of a beast waiting for its cue to strike... The aura of fear around him... It's the same from that day...When it all started...Only now it's more controlled, less...hungry or chaotic._

Thinking on it, Angel could remember that back then she had been able to detect two kinds of fear. The first was just like this man's aura, only more aggressive and hungry as if it had finally latched itself on its prey. The second one she had felt was the fear from the prey itself. Now, she could understand which was which and who played each role at that day.

Her glare turned into a devilish smile. "It was you, then. Now I get it... You were the one those things were tearing apart ten years ago. Your own Nightmares attacking you. How did it feel, I wonder, to have your own power turn against you?"

The dark spirit slammed his palms against the tree so hard that she winced unintentionally. His eyes burned into her own, boiling rage flashing over them. He practically hissed in her face, a low growl barely being kept covered in his throat. "You want to see power, my dear? Because it would be my pleasure to give you a taste of the consequences of your insolence."

Her smile had been replaced with a firm expression. She raised an eyebrow, despite herself. "Is that a threat?"

The next moment, the man had shadow-travelled a few feet away from her, among his Nightmares. "More of a fact."

Then the Nightmares charged at her all at once, hooves pounding loudly against the ground and eyes set firmly upon her figure. Normally, she would have tried to back away and flee. But she knew what she was capable of and she knew that Chimaira had done what the spirit had told her to do. She raised the same eyebrow higher, a secretive smile settling on her lips that seemed very contradictory to the Nightmares quickly approaching her. They were almost on her, the one closer to her taking the last step forward-

At the last second, numerous waves of black crystals shot from the ground in front of her, forming into enormous horses with canines for teeth. The Nightmares stopped abruptly and took a few steps backwards out of reflex, having caught off guard by the crystal herd that neighed threateningly at their faces as it formed a kind of shield around the female spirit.

Not letting the Nightmares recover from the shock, Angel's horses attacked. The Nightmares were grabbed by the necks or kicked to their sides and shoved to the ground, the crystal horses trapping them beneath their legs and snorting angrily in their faces, leaving them little space for movement. The mares had very few chances of fighting one on one with the crystal horses and even when that happened, they were easily defeated. In the end, the shadow was left looking in surprise and clear disbelief at his Nightmares being restrained and held down by the woman's servants. His favorite Nightmare, Onyx, had gotten trapped by the worst of all the horses, an enormous beast of a horse with eight legs.

Angel couldn't help the laughter that escaped her mouth. Despite the fact that the guy was annoying as hell, the look on his face at that moment was priceless. "Who would have thought it'd be so much fun to play with you!"

The shadowy man scowled deeply and created a massive scythe of black sand before moving closer and swinging. Angel ducked out of the way at the last minute, smile momentarily gone, and threw her hands out. Two massive paper-thin crystal tentacles with sharp pointed ends formed on her back and rose high above her head. The tentacles followed the movements of her arms, forming an X shape in front of her to block the next two swings of the scythe before serving an attack of their own.

The air around them filled with the echoing clangs of their weapons colliding with each other. The man's momentary surprise at the sight of her weapons had cost him the element of surprise, despite him regaining his composure a few moments later. She was continuously attacking, backing him further and further away from his nightmares, who whined and tried hopelessly to escape her own horses. The adrenaline of the fight was mildly satisfying to Angel, though she should admit that she hadn't expected this to be so easy. She hadn't spent a lot of time practicing with her weapons when she first discovered that she could actually create them, so it was surprising that she was the only one attacking while the other spirit kept staying on the defense.

What she didn't know, but should have predicted, was that the darker spirit had the advantage of experience. Having lived since the Dark Ages, and even before that, he had eons to train and plan out tactics and strategies. He knew more about fights than her and he certainly was more emotionally collected, not allowing his emotions to lead his hands, while she had already let herself get carried away by the excitement of the fight. He knew very well what he was doing.

Angel's smile had returned as she crashed the right tentacle on his scythe and swung with the left, knowing that he would just block it as he had done all the previous times. She never saw him ducking away from her attack.

Her eyes widened, smile erased from her lips. As if in slow motion her gaze followed him slipping to her left and bringing his scythe forcefully down on the base of her weapons on her back, a vicious snarl on his face.

 _He...He tricked me...!_

The crystal shattered completely and dissipated, making her stumble to regain her balance.

 _I should have known this was too easy...!_

Using her lowered guard, he pushed her against a tree with the blade of his scythe and held the tip close to her throat. Angel eyed the tip tickling the skin of her throat warily before shifting her gaze to him. The scowl on his face was almost that of a scolding teacher. 'You lack experience' it said.

 _He had planned this all along..._

He watched her breathe heavily, the surprise on her face leaving him more satisfied than he had been in quite some time. "Why, milady, you don't look like you're having fun anymore." he taunted. A flicker of amusement fluttered in his stomach when he noticed her breath hitching at his words.

A second scythe crashed against his own before he had time to continue his taunting, knocking it away from the woman. He took a step back in surprise and turned to see the same cloaked skeleton from that night standing protectively in front of the other spirit, scythe at the ready.

Before he had time to process what to do, a wave of black crystals shot out from the ground in front of him, forming a great pegasus, who neighed loudly and kicked the scythe out of his hands, destroying it.

The shadow stepped back wearily to avoid the pegasus rage, but to no avail. The enraged winged horse closed the distance between them and stood on its hind legs, wings flapping threateningly, intending to crash its hooves on him. That is, before its owner got in the middle and raised her hands towards it.

"Whoa whoa!" Angel called out, making sure to keep the uneasy creature away from the man behind her. "Easy! Easy boy, easy...easy."

Her presence eased the pegasus rage enough for it to bring its hooves calmly back down and fold its wings on its back. The winged horse bowed its head, enjoying the soft touch of her hands as they came to rest on its nose. She ran her fingers over its face tenderly, chuckling to herself.

She turned to face the grey skinned man once she was sure that Orion wasn't going to stomp him to death. And now that Chimaira had finally alerted the others, she allowed herself to put on a smug smile of her own. "Did you really think I didn't have any backup at the ready?"

As if to prove her point, black crystal creatures of all kinds emerged from the nearby trees, their glowing purple eyes trained on the man and his restrained Nightmares. At the lead was an all too familiar headless man on the back of a stallion. The man's surprise was bare for Angel to gloat at.

 _But now it's not the time to gloat. The guy kicked my ass back there. If I am wrong and he is actually one of the Guardians, then my plan will go down the toilet... Though, if I'm right..._

She supposed it wouldn't hurt to just ask away.

"So..." her voice snapped his attention from the Horseman back to her. "Now that there's no tension in the air, enlighten me on this: Are you a Guardian?"

The dark spirit actually jerked at the question, a mixture of bafflement, surprise and disbelief flashing in his eyes. Angel dared to think that this was the most surprised she had seen him from the moment she had laid eyes upon him that night. Silence fell between the two of them, one that lasted several moments with the only reaction from the man being the occasional blink of his eyes.

The next moment, he threw his head back and roared with a laughter that unnerved even his own Nightmares. Angel actually took a step back from how sudden that reaction had been. She couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at him as he laughed and laughed with no signs of stopping. It wasn't just his reaction that unnerved her. It was his laughter. It was loud, as if he had just heard the best joke in the world, but had a dark undertone to it, a very menacing one at that. She felt that there was more to it than she had thought.

Finally his laughter ceased and he raised a hand to clutch his heaving chest. Angel was sure he was this close to crying from laughter. A toothy smile remained on his face. "Quite a sense of humor you have, my dear. I haven't laughed like this in centuries."

She forced a breath out of her nose. "I'll take that as a 'no' then."

The man tilted his head, eclipse eyes examining her. She could have sworn that she saw his shoulders relax after he was done inspecting her. "You honestly don't know the slightest bit about the history I have with them, don't you?"

The curious part of her would have liked to ask what he meant, but his behavior after the question made her anxious enough to not bother. She had learnt that he was an enemy of them just as she had assumed in the first place, that was the only important thing at the moment. Otherwise, why would he have reacted that way?

She shrugged, acting indifferent. "I haven't been around for that long."

"I figured that much."

She bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from throwing a comeback at him. "Well then, who are you?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, faking surprise. Or, more accurately, he would have raised an eyebrow. If he had one. "Haven't you figured out? A clever girl like yourself?"

He was met with silence from her. Angel looked skeptically at him, shifting her gaze right and left to her creatures for any suggestions. Reaper threw an idea from her left in a whisper that resembled the voice of a ghost. Angel didn't realize he was joking until she heard his guess and fought to keep a straight face.

She turned her eyes to the man, as if checking to see whether her creature was right. "He doesn't look like Cupid to me, Reaper."

She received a deadpan expression from the stranger, non-existent eyebrow raised even higher. Angel bit back a bark of laughter and turned her attention to a crystal python that was hanging loosely from a tree branch. She captured her lower lip between her teeth to avoid smiling. "The Leprechaun? Guys, this is no time for jokes."

One of the trapped Nightmares huffed in annoyance, probably feeling personally offended to have its master being mocked and compared to such lowly spirits. Angel glanced at it, realizing that she had completely forgotten about their presence during the fight. Nightmares. Corrupted dreams, that's what she thought them to be. Something dark that enjoyed scaring children.

 _Scaring children... There was some supernatural being that was known for this specific thing..._

Her eyes returned to him, ignoring the scowl that met her. "You are the Boogeyman."

The realization in her voice wasn't enough to erase his scowl, but it was able to ease it at the very least. "Most commonly known. The title Nightmare King is most preferred, but if you want to settle for something more informal, my name is Pitch Black."

She looked at him up and down. "I'm not surprised."

He put his hands casually behind his back. "Now, little one, could-"

"The name's Angel Myth." she snapped, a scowl of her own settling on her face.

"Angel, dear..." he smiled tauntingly. "May I have my Nightmares back?"

She looked around at her horses still standing over the fallen Nightmares, her servants giving her questioning looks. "Let the ladies go, gentlemen."

The crystal horses moved off of the Nightmares with a few annoyed snorts, letting them leap through the air and back to their master's side. Only Onyx didn't return, as she was too preoccupied with biting playfully on the crystal ear of the eight-legged horse who, in return, was sniffing and biting her mane.

Angel eyed the scene for a second before rolling her eyes, arms crossed over her chest. "Sleipnir, let your new friend go."

Sleipnir stopped in mid-bite, whinnied softly and stepped away from the Nightmare. Onyx took her time of standing back up and looking at him before she moved to Pitch's side. The Boogeyman eyed his servant and then the eight-legged horse. "Sleipnir?"

"The horse of the king of the Norse gods, Odin." Angel answered, stroking Sleipnir's head. "The myth says that it had eight legs."

"And that makes you the mistress of myths, I presume?"

She chuckled, spreading her arms wide to motion towards her creations. "Do tell me, what gave me away?"

He shook his head, as if tired of her annoying teasing. "I've spent enough centuries with other spirits to know how to recognize things like this easily."

"Gosh, someone sounds ancient. Hey, you stay away from him!" She snapped at a horse that had come too close to Pitch. The crystal creature huffed and backed off. "Beware of those. They are Diomydis horses, too tricky. Also, human-eating."

Pitch turned to give a small glare at the horse, making it back away even further, a slight tremble of its legs visible to the darker spirit's eyes. "I'll keep that in mind."

Angel noticed the Horseman to her right staring intently at Pitch and smirked, recalling his first meeting with the Boogeyman. "I believe you two know each other."

Pitch's shoulders straightened as his gaze fell on the mythical being, straightening proudly to his full height. "The Headless Horseman."

"Also, the man who helped you out of a ...difficult situation." She pointed out, making sure to chose her words carefully concerning what she had felt that night ten years ago. "He still hasn't heard a 'thank you'."

Pitch tensed slightly at the mention of his torture by the Nightmares ten years ago, the memories of it still too fresh in his mind, but shrugged nonetheless. "His services weren't needed."

The corners of her lips curled upwards at the obvious lie made up to protect his pride. She could almost feel the Horseman rolling his eyes. "Whatever you say." Spotting the shape of Chimaira's body behind the Horseman's stallion reminded her of an important detail. "Now, I would like my tooth box back."

The Boogeyman seemed to pause by the sudden change of subject, though a deep chuckle left his lips soon after. "What tooth box?"

Her look hardened. "The tooth box you stole from my Chimaira." she responded, the animal in question growling deeply.

He smirked devilishly. "The tooth box you stole from Toothiana?"

"What is it with you and the Guardians? One moment you claim to hate them, the next you make them victims of mine?"

He raised a finger. "Correction: I simply state the facts."

"You are so bloody annoying." she growled.

"I do my best."

Angel exhaled deeply through her nose, all the while burning holes in Pitch's skull.

 _Such an infuriating person... How am I going to get my memories back now? Stealing is out of the question, the tooth box will probably be in his lair, where he is stronger. I barely kept up with him during the fight, if I am in his lair I have no chance at all. Invading his home is out of the question as well. I don't need another enemy that can match, or even outmatch, my power so easily. Powerful beings like him should either be allies or neutral parties._

 _...Hang on... 'Allies'?_

 _...An ally like him...could be very useful...Not to mention that I am in desperate need of a sparing teacher._

"Alright then, teach me how to fight."

Pitch's eyes widened, taken aback by how abruptly the proposition had been thrown at him. "I beg your pardon?"

Convincing herself that she was in no danger now that her servants were here, she started walking towards him, her creatures dissolving into crystals to hide in the shadows of the forest as she walked. She didn't have to worry about them. She knew they would be at the ready if things turned out for the worst. "It is obvious that you have no intentions of giving me the tooth box back, for reasons I don't know. Normally, I would challenge you to a fight for it. But, seeing that I am inexperienced as the outcome of our fight clearly showed, I would surely lose."

She stopped a foot away from him, acknowledging the fact that he had been trying to read her expression to figure out where she was going with this. "So, teach me how to fight and then I will challenge you. It will be a fairer fight."

He smiled wolfishly, amusement written all over his face. The next moment, he was gone from her eyes without so much as a word or noise, the remaining Nightmares staring her down being the only proof that he was still there somewhere.

"You are an interesting one, aren't you?" His voice echoed all around her sounding everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Angel looked around at the dark forest, seeing only shadows. She tried to force herself not to think how creepy this was.

She froze, though, when she felt his presence behind her back. She felt his breath tickling her ear, making the little hair on the back of her neck stand. His whisper was smoother than his normal voice, yet it unsettled her more. "Are you sure you'll be able to face me again, with my full capabilities?"

She raised her head high, looking straight ahead with pride. She had dealt with men that played intimidating once upon a time. And she had never lost to any of them. "I will manage, don't worry."

He chuckled in her ear, two fingers brushing against the silver of her tiara. "We'll see about that."

Then he was gone. Angel turned around, but so no one there. Even the Nightmares were nowhere to be seen. Just like that, he had vanished with no released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and rubbed her eyes. That hadn't gone the way she had wanted to. She was left with one missing tooth box and a spirit that was either an ally or an enemy. She didn't know what to make out of it.

 _At least this...meeting didn't go that bad. Though it could have gone better..._

She heard Orion's hooves lightly walk across the forest ground to stop beside her, his nose blowing warm air on her cheek. One corner of her mouth curled upwards and she turned to pet her loyal servant on the nose. "Care to give me a ride back home, old friend?"

Orion snorted his agreement and turned to give his mistress access to his back. Angel climbed onto him and urged him forward into a slow walk. She was in no hurry to return to her cave either way. Her eyes raised to the night sky, but didn't rest on the silver moon. They wandered the stars, searching for something she didn't even know what it was. Unconsciously, black crystals started swirling from the end of the string on her shoulder, around her arm and down to her fingers, shaping into one of the two tooth boxes she had obtained that night.

She looked down at the face drawn on it, curious as to which she had chosen to open. Her heart fluttered at the image of her daughter's face smiling back at her. She didn't feel ready to see what the box contained. Then again, she couldn't know when she would be ready. But she knew that she wanted to see its contents. No matter what they were, she wanted to see them. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to help ease her nerves. It didn't work.

Her fingers had pressed down on the designs that opened the box before she had time to open her eyes.

 _Baby Emily was laughing in glee as her father threw her high in the air and caught her in his arms before repeating the action, the baby's amusement making his own smile widen even more._

 _"Building up her adrenaline right before her bedtime won't help me to put her in bed faster, Mark." Angel spoke from her position leaning against the door of the bedroom, smiling at the two of them._

 _"Have you seen how she laughs when I do this?! I swear I will do this forever if it means she won't ever stop laughing like that." her husband commented, though he did adjust the baby in a sitting position in his arms. Angel bit her lower lip with a smile before she pushed herself off of the doorframe and walked over to them, taking the baby in her own arms._

 _"She is just as cute when she's asleep, darling." She seated herself on their bed, rocking Emily softly in her arms. The baby didn't look eager to go to sleep though._

 _"We should find a lullaby for her." Her husband commented, sitting on the spot beside her and smiling down at his daughter._

 _"That's very cliché of you, Mark." She retorted, raising an eyebrow at him as he turned on the TV of their bedroom and started searching the channels. He looked sideways at her. "You know I am a walking cliché, darling."_

 _She chuckled, dropping a kiss to his cheek before she returned her attention to the baby, still rocking it in hopes of making it sleep. A few moments passed before her husband pointed to the TV screen, showing her a French animated movie, one of the characters singing a sweet tune in the background._

 _Angel rolled her eyes, an exasperated smile on her face. "Again with the French songs!"_

 _"Aw, come on, you have to admit they sound quite nice, don't you think?" he asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and resting his cheek on her right shoulder, gazing up at her. She shook her head at him but returned the smile nonetheless. "Give it a try, my Angel."_

 _She focused on the lyrics of the movie song, memorizing as many of them as possible before trying to sing it herself. It was a simple song, with a simple rhyme to follow so it didn't take her long to sing her own replica of it. She hadn't the best of voices, but thankfully for the baby it wasn't that bad either. Slowly, Emily's eyelids started getting heavy with sleep, causing her mother to smile through the song._ _Mark kissed her temple. "Told you..."_

The memory was abruptly interrupted. Angel's fingers were grasping it so tightly that her knuckles were paler than other times. Her body was shaking so much that she had to grasp Orion's mane so as not to fall off of his back. The pegasus stopped in its tracks, ears flicking to the side to try identifying the cause of its mistress' distress.

Angel gritted her teeth as a tear ran down her cheek and fell on the golden box. Her heart was being squeezed inside her chest. She had to gulp down her desire to scream at the sky before she urged the horse to resume its walking.

Her wet eyes flickered to the box still clutched in her hand. Remembering how she had stopped the memory before it was finished because she could look at her loved one's faces longer without aching.

 _This is going to be harder than I thought._

* * *

 **Hello again, everyone! I apologize for the long wait and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Reviews are always appreciated and highly important for every author. The lullaby from the memory is a song from the movie Azur et Asmar. The full title on Youtube is :**

 **Souad Massi - La Berceuse d'Azur et Asmar (Paroles et Traduction)**


	6. Poor thing

Angel pulled at Orion's reins before he had the time to pass through the waterfall to her cave. She took a few moments to look at it, contemplating whether or not she should enter. In there, the only thing she would do was sit in her throne and stare at the ceiling. Not the most exciting thing to do, combined with the darkness the cave contained it was quite depressing.

 _The last thing I need after peeking in my daughter's memories._

She twisted her wrist, fingers dancing in the air, creating a small hummingbird. The little bird raffled its wings while it rested on Angel's finger and looked at her with its bright purple eyes expectantly. She was almost disappointed to see it all black and crystal. Of course, she knew that her creatures would gain their natural color under the crystal layer once they found themselves close to people who believed in their existence, but she never understood why. It only served on making her hideout even darker than it already was. Her servants were as dark in color as her cave.

"Hello, little one. I want you to get the others. We'll go for a walk, while the night is still young."

The hummingbird chirped its unique sound and flew off behind the waterfall. Angel didn't wait for it to return with the rest of her creations, instead, she turned Orion around and they both flew up to the sky. It wasn't long before she heard her creations following, both on earth and sky, following her lead.

"You choose a place this time, Orion." she said, petting the pegasus on the neck. The winged horse snorted its answer and its mistress let it take her and its companions wherever it pleased. She didn't care where that was, she simply wanted to stay away from her cave for a while.

She looked up when she felt a bright light falling upon her, glare forming on her face at the sight of the moon. She could feel its disapproving gaze on her, thinking it had the right to judge her because it had power over her. Only, it didn't. Nobody did or ever would. No matter the case, Angel had learned not to let anyone have any power over her. It was a lesson every kid without a father figure should be taught.

When Orion landed at the edge of a forest near what looked like a quiet neighborhood, she didn't ask where they were. She didn't really care. She did wonder, though, why he had chosen this place as she watched her creatures spread around the place, moving even further in the country. She herself chose one of the many terraces to sit and watch the little town from above.

This was all she was supposed to do, really. Her element was more of a day job since people were able to fantasize about things while awake instead of asleep. So, the only reason she would go out some nights was to just watch her servants have fun. Orion would fly around, the hellhounds would hide in the dark or chase each other in a playful fight, the Horseman would laugh his chilling laughter at the moon, the werewolves would howl...they were doing what their stories would say about them. For Angel, who was used to it, it was not anything special. But for some people who happened to be around, it was fascinating.

Angel's attention was caught by the engine of a white van parking in the alley beneath her. Out of instinct her eyes searched the source of the noise and fell upon it as its two passengers stepped out of it. She would have dismissed the sight and turn to look at something more interesting if it wasn't for one of them who kneeled in front of the door of the nearest house and started picking the lock.

Her face fell into a frown, her gut telling her that something was very, very wrong. She watched for a few seconds, observing the kneeling man who managed to unlock the door for him and his partner to slip into the house after adjusting white Halloween masks on their faces. Angel's eyes widened when she saw the second man reaching something that was in his belt behind his back. There was no doubt that these two weren't there to have a tea party.

 _How did they get in so easily? Doesn't the owner of the house have an alarm?!_

Without really thinking about what she was doing or why she transformed into a wave of black crystal pieces and slipped down the terrace and inside the house. She took her original form again, to find herself in what appeared to be a living room. But no one was there. Everything was dark and quiet. As if the two men had never been there in the first place. She looked around cautiously, walking further into the house and towards a long corridor at the end of the living room.

A loud _thump_ was heard, followed by a low groan of discomfort that startled the spirit. Next thing she knew, a man came running out of the left door at the end of the corridor towards the one on the right, having just woken up by the looks of it, his face twisted with fear.

"AMELIA!" he screamed, pushing the door open hard enough to make it loudly hit the wall. Angel felt herself freeze in place with anxiety the moment she saw the man stop dead in his tracks at the door entrance.

"Walk away from the door. Slowly." She gulped upon realizing that it wasn't the man who had spoken.

He, instead, slowly backed away from the door and unknowingly moved closer to Angel. His eyes were always trained towards the open door, the horror evident on his face.

Angel's heart dropped to her stomach.

From the open door emerged one of the robbers, glaring daggers at the shaken man. A pistol was being held in one of his hands, but it wasn't aimed at the man. It was aimed at the head of a little girl that squirmed fearfully in his other hand. The poor thing was literally dangling by his side, her bare feet kicking the air while her hands were wrapped around the robber's arm on her waist. Now, Angel's relationship with kids was complicated in many ways from the moment she had discovered that her family was dead. She hadn't been able to decide what she really wanted, believers or children experiencing her distress for being allowed to live while her own child was taken from her. She hadn't found the answer to that. But, at that moment, watching that girl staring pleadingly at her father while shaking in fear in the robber's hands, so close to tears, made her think of only one thing.

 _You're a dead son of a bitch..._

Yet, she found herself unable to do anything but watch.

"Daddy..." the little girl, Amelia as Angel recalled from when her father had yelled earlier, whimpered desperately, her lower lip trembling. Her father's eyes flickered from her to her captor. "Please, let my daughter go. You can take anything you want, just let her go."

The robber shook his head, almost tauntingly. "We're not here to rob you."

As if on cue, his partner stumbled out of the room Angel assumed was the father's bedroom and pressed his gun against the father's temple, who visibly gulped but didn't take his eyes off of his daughter. "You see, you took everything from us. So, we repay the favor."

The first robber cocked his gun and pressed it on the girl's head, making her choke out a sob. Her father almost jumped forward out of reflex, if it weren't for the second robber who had him literally at gunpoint. "No! Please, not my daughter, please!"

"That's not something you can decide." answered the first man. "If you want her, you'll pay us everything we lost because of you. But, for the time being..."

The second robber hit the father on the head with his gun, knocking him unconscious on the floor. The action was so sudden that snapped Angel out of her frozen state, just as the two criminals gagged the little girl and ran out of the house, leaving the unconscious, but still alive, man on the floor of his own living room.

She dashed out of the door, determined to chase after them for reasons that didn't bother to cross her mind at the moment. A couple of feet outside of the house she stopped, seeing the men throw the gagged girl in the back of their van and getting in the front in a matter of seconds. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as the engine started.

 _No, you don't._

She brought her thumb and index finger to her mouth and whistled loudly, half a dozen of her hellhounds appearing on the roofs above her. She pointed a finger at the van the minute its wheels screeched against the cement. "Stop that vehicle!"

The hellish dogs growled loudly and leaped off the roofs, chasing after the van that dashed towards the exit of the alley. Six pairs of jaws latched themselves on the vehicle's rear bumper, the hellhounds stopping it before it could exit the alley by applying resistance with their legs on the road. The wheels screeched louder as they left black marks on the cement, the rising smoke indicating the damage that was inflicted on them.

Despite their temporary success, though, Angel could see that even her dogs were struggling to keep the van in the stop, their paws slightly slipping from under them. Her hands shot waves of black crystals forward, creating the form of Sleipnir. The enormous horse stood on its hind legs, only to stomp his front legs three feet in front of the van, signaling to the hellhounds to let go.

The van crashed full force on Sleipnir's legs and gained so many dents and damages that it stopped working altogether with a groan. The front of the vehicle looked like it had fallen against a thick tree. Sleipnir, on the other hand, stood proud and unharmed, glaring down at the offending machine.

"What the hell did we hit?!" one of the men yelled, the struggle clear in his voice as he fought to get out of the van from the beaten passenger door.

His partner managed to slip out of the broken window of the driver and fall on the cement, his clothes scratched in various places, but with nothing more than minor injuries. He raised his head with a moan of pain and his eyes widened.

"That's a...horse..." he whispered, mostly to himself.

The spirit responsible smirked with satisfaction three feet away from the van. One thing she was grateful for was the way her powers worked. She may not have been able to make children believe in her, but that wasn't the case with her creatures. They didn't need to be believed in to be visible to others. The only thing it took for people to see them was imagination. If a person had ever heard of a mythical creature or read about it, then it was certain that they would make a mental picture of it in their head, using their imagination. From that point on, the creature would be visible to that person.

That was the case with these two, as well. Somehow, they had gained information about Norse Mythology and now they could see and hear Sleipnir. Who, by now, had turned to glare and snort menacingly at the two surprised men.

"How did it come here?" The first man wondered out loud, still staring wide-eyed at the unnatural horse.

"Why aren't you wondering how it can be still alive after we crashed on it?!" exclaimed the second man, eyeing the damaged vehicle in disbelief. And a moment later, he seemed to remember what they had been here for as he shook his partner's shoulder. "Hey, we got no time to ponder on it, we have to get moving before the neighbors hear the commotion and call the cops!"

The other man snapped out of his trance and stood up, passing through Angel to reach the back of the van. " I'll get the girl."

 _Think again._ She thought, glaring as her hands created a massive crystal figure.

The man stretched out his arm and grabbed the handle of the door to pull it open. The door, though, was stopped midway by a big white hand with unnaturally long fingers that kept the door in place. The criminal followed the arm attached to the hand all the way up to the face of the other individual and paled in horror. The man in the black business suit that stared down at him from the enormous height of 8 feet lacked hair, ears, eyebrows, nose, and eyes. The only facial feature it had was a big mouth that stretched into a wide supernatural smile, revealing razor-sharp teeth.

The second criminal turned abruptly at the sound of his partner's horrified scream, his gun raised in his hand. He saw his partner on the cement, trying to push himself away from the back of the van while screaming his head off at nothing. The second man gripped the gun tighter but couldn't help the confused look that took over his features. He started approaching his partner cautiously, missing the black crystals that slipped on the roof of the van.

"George, what's wrong man?!" he called out, trying to be heard over the screaming.

"He doesn't look so good, Alex." another voice sounded, followed by a high pitched giggle. The man froze in his tracks, cold sweat forming on his brow. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his eyes up to the roof of the van, finding the source of the voice. The gun slipped from his fingers and fell on the ground by his feet.

Staring back at him was a tall clown in a white victorian era's costume, orange hair framing his white face, blood-red lips pulling back to give him a sharp-toothed smile. The clown waved a white-gloved hand at him, his hungry smile contrasting the innocent high-pitched sound of his voice. "Heya Alex!"

The man's scream matched his partner's, provoking the clown who leaped down at him like a growling beast showing off his needle-sharp rows of teeth. The man barely managed to jump to the side and roll on the road, crashing on George. The collision seemed to make the adrenaline kick in as they both scrambled to their feet and ran away from the van, the two supernatural beings growling and roaring at them, without leaving from the van.

Angel watched the two men run with narrowed eyes from her spot near the driver's seat. She would have liked to let her creatures chase after them, but she kept herself back. She couldn't afford to let her anger take over her powers, she could feel in her bones that it wouldn't end well if she decided to let go. Besides, that wasn't why she had gone through all that trouble.

She turned to look at the back of the van, remembering the poor child that remained inside. If she concentrated, she could hear the muffled sobs coming from inside the vehicle.

 _Let's ease her distress, then._

She hadn't taken two steps towards the back when she heard a light mechanical groan. Frowning in confusion, she followed the sound back to the damaged front of the van. It took her a moment to realize that the groan had come from the engine.

Her eyes widened when she noticed a spark between the cracks.

She spun around, shooting black crystals towards the back of the van. "Get the girl out of the van!" she screamed as Fury formed from the crystal and latched her claws at the doors, pulling them so hard that they flew on the road behind her, eliciting a scream from the girl inside. Fury paid it no mind as she dove inside the van.

Angel turned at the engine out of instinct when she heard another sound from it.

 _Oh no..._

The explosion was so strong that threw her a good 15 feet away from the vehicle, making her crash against the hard ground, landing painfully on her side. The roar of the flames engulfing the van covered her groan of pain as she slowly pushed herself up and looked at the burning vehicle. The flames danced wildly around their source, triggering painful memories.

 _"Angel!"_

 _"I'm not leaving you!"_

 _"Momma!"_

Angel shut her eyes firmly, shaking her head before her mind could delve more into her memory. It didn't help that she could still hear her baby girl's voice ring in her ears. Which abruptly reminded her that there was supposed to be another girl with her.

She turned her head from her spot on the cement, searching her surroundings for the little girl and her servant, but finding no sign of them. Her breathing hitched in worry and she stood on shaky legs to better examine the environment around her.

"Fury?" she didn't like how her voice betrayed her growing anxiety, though she didn't try to cover it up. Nothing happened, nobody answered. She took note of her servants slowly approaching her from all sides, gathering up around her, but no matter where she looked, she couldn't find the one servant she was looking for. She yelled louder. "Fury!"

"Up here... mistress..." Angel snapped her gaze up, spotting Fury sitting on the edge of a fire escape with the girl dangling from her eagle claws, shaking and shielding her face from the world. Fury had folded her wings on her back and was currently trying to catch her breath from the sounds of her heavy panting. Apparently, she had pushed herself to fly faster than any other time to save the girl in time.

Although her worry had been eased, that didn't stop the scowl that formed on her features. "Bring her down here, then! Can't you see that she's already had enough for one night?"

Despite her tiredness, Fury obeyed immediately and flew closer to the ground, settling the kid as softly as possible beside Angel's legs before seating herself on the lid of a nearby trashcan. The woman eyed the kid in front of her, curled up into a ball and hiding her face in her knees, noting that she was still crying, if her shaking was anything to go by. Also, if her judgment wasn't failing her, the girl was no more than six years old.

 _Poor kid...Because of those bastards, she might develop a trauma..._

She really hoped it wouldn't go this far, though the chances weren't exactly on the girl's favor. The thought made something inside her stir and she raised her hand to the kid's long black hair, wanting to offer some form of comfort. Her hand passed through the small head to slowly return to her side. It was one of the few times she felt more disappointed than surprised to witness this. Even now, when she was trying to do something good for a kid rather than try to gain something for herself, she wasn't able to do anything but watch. She had to grit her teeth together to keep her frustration under control.

 _I can't even talk to her._

She had to communicate with the girl in some other way. She glanced around at her creatures, Fury, Sleipnir, the hellhounds. And her newest additions, Slenderman and the clown of Stephen King, Pennywise. Not the best group she had ever gathered with her but...

Her eyes fell on Fury and a nod of her head was all it took for the supernatural being to understand what it should do. The sure thing was that she wasn't going to get any actual rest until they were all back in the cave. Using the telepathy Angel shared with all of her creations, she instructed Fury on what to do and what to say.

 _As if using a puppet to speak on my behalf._

The winged woman kneeled in front of the girl and spoke as softly as she could manage. "It's okay now. It's okay, Amelia."

The shaking stopped at the mention of her name. Ever so slowly, the six-year-old raised its head just enough to be able to look Fury's face. Angel didn't need an expert to tell her that the brown eyes of the kid were filled with fear and uncertainty. Thankfully, Fury didn't have to be told how to deal with this. She put on a small, reassuring smile. "Don't worry. You will be fine."

Amelia sniffed and blinked away tears. "Wh-Who...who are you?"

The woman tilted her head, trying to appear more childish or at least friendlier. "I'm a Fury, kid. Surely you've heard of me."

Amelia nodded slightly, a spark of wonder making itself known in the corner of her eye. "I read about you in a storybook."

Fury smiled wide enough for her fangs to be exposed. Amelia didn't seem to mind so much, probably because she already had a vague idea of Fury's characteristics. "That's good to hear."

"What...what are you doing here?" Her arms wrapped tighter around her knees, eyes snapping at all directions fearfully. "Are those men-..."

Angel warned Fury telepathically to stop the girl before she became hysteric. "They ran away, Amelia. They can't hurt you anymore."

Amelia's eyes locked with Fury's, somehow confirming that Fury was being honest with her, allowing her tense muscles to relax considerably. Until she turned to see the fire that was still feeding off of the van, that is. Seeing the nervous look on the girl's face intensify, Angel had Fury pick Amelia up and place her back in her room. Fury obeyed, trying to hide the nervousness of having a child so close to her, while Amelia was tense for the first ten seconds before she decided to trust the winged woman and relaxed in her arms.

Angel followed Fury in the girl's room, making sure to have the unconscious father returned to his bed by her creations so that the poor kid would have to see her father in that helpless state a second time as they reached for her room. Seeing him getting hit was too much to handle in the first place.

The woman hadn't given her actions much thought up to that point, how from plotting against deities that existed to keep the children safe she had ended up rescuing a child from a kidnapping. Only when the girl was settled in her bed, did she start to realize what had happened. And it troubled her greatly that she didn't have a logical explanation. She just stood there, much like her creatures that had decided to gather in the child's bedroom, staring awkwardly at Amelia.

The kid started fumbling with her blanket, looking around. So far, Angel could tell that Fury, Sleipnir, and the clown were visible to the girl, but neither Slenderman or the hellhounds had been given a single glance from her. "I-Is my dad..."

"Sleeping like a baby." the clown giggled, addressing the kid for the first time that night and scaring the hell out of her if the way she jumped at his voice was anything to go by. "He is as safe as you are, Amy."

Amelia seemed to be more nervous than relieved by the comment, as she looked at the clown and gulped audibly. Angel couldn't really blame her. Hearing that she was safe by a child-eating clown wasn't exactly comforting.

"B-But... if they...come b-back, then..."

"After that scare, they wouldn't dare come back." Fury interjected, offering the girl a fanged grin and a wink. Amelia's fingers relaxed on the blanket.

"You should have seen them, Amy!" giggled the clown, his mood taking a turn to the excitement of a child opening a Christmas present, his hands clapping and bunny teeth showing. "They were so scared, their faces were hilarious! I could almost taste the fear around them!"

Angel facepalmed when she saw the girl's eyes widening at the words 'taste' and 'fear'. She knew the clown was trying to help, probably for the first time since he was created in Stephen King's mind, but because of his nature, he was terrible at it.

"Yeah, he and Slenderman made them wet themselves." Fury chuckled, taking a seat at the foot of Amelia's bed when the later turned to her in confusion.

"Who is...Slentman?"

"It's Slender-man, silly! And he is this tall, funny dressed guy with no face, he is standing here!" The clown pointed to his right, where Slenderman was, indeed, standing patiently, his wide smile reduced to a sealed mouth.

"I... don't see anyone there."

"Ah!" The clown raised up a finger. "Wrong answer! Look closer! Picture him standing there."

As Amy slowly turned to the empty space beside the clown and frowned in concentration, Angel approached the bedroom window and looked out at the street, where the van was still aflame. She could faintly hear sirens down the road, alerting the arrival of the firefighters and possibly the police.

 _Took them long enough._

She jumped in alarm when the girl cried out and pulled the blanket up to her nose, staring fearfully at Slenderman and more specifically at his signature grin, which had returned full force because of the excitement of being seen. Angel sighed in annoyance. If they kept going that way on her she didn't want to imagine what kind of psychological problems would destroy her childhood in the future.

The clown was either oblivious about the situation or simply couldn't care less. "You see him now, Amy?"

Amelia's voice was muffled from the blanket. "Y-You're s-s-scaring m-me..."

The supernatural clown looked at Slenderman's non-existent face with a contemplative pout. "You could say that he is a little...expressionless. But! That can be fixed!"

He grabbed a red-colored pen and drew two eyes and a nose on Slenderman's blank face. The new features looked right out of a six-year old's color book. While the clown stood to admire his work, Slenderman was standing still like a statue, Amelia regarding him with a surprised look, the corners of her mouth twitching in an attempt to hide a small smile.

The clown clapped his hands and giggled. "Now that's better! So Amy, meet Slenderman. Slenderman, meet Amy." He jumped onto Amelia's bed, causing her to yelp in fear and shy behind her blanket even more. "And I am Pennywise, the Dancing Clown!"

The girl visibly shivered, her eyes staring fearfully at Pennywise's smiling white face. "D-Don't...eat me...p-please."

His smile turned upside down like an upset child. "Why are you scared of me, Amy?"

"B-Because y-you... eat children."

His head tilted to the side. "But not my friends. We are friends, aren't we Amy?"

Her bottom lip started trembling. "But you...are a... monster..."

Angel dig her nails into her palms. "Pennywise, stop pushing her-"

"I might be a monster, but that doesn't mean I don't have a heart."

Angel forgot what she was about to say. The small bedroom was too silent all of a sudden. Even the sound of the sirens outside was barely audible.

Amelia had shifted so the blanket was only covering her chin, curious eyes examining the clown.

"You have a heart too, right Amy?"

Her blanket fell from her face, the fear seemingly replaced by wonder.

Angel heard the shuffling from the room across from them. "Alright guys, her dad is waking up. We better get going before he wakes up and she starts telling him everything."

Fury nodded subtly, standing up and stretching her back. "Okay, we got to get going."

Amelia turned her gaze from Pennywise to her, a look of worry overtaking her features. "You're leaving?"

"Don't worry, you will be safe here with your dad." She puts a finger on her lips and winks at the kid. "Promise to visit you, if you promise to keep our existence a secret, okay?"

Amelia glanced at the other two creatures visible to her with uneasiness. Slenderman mimicked Fury's gesture of silence, and so did Pennywise. She slowly and timidly nodded. "I promise."

As Slenderman and Fury moved to leave with the hellhounds, which had stayed quiet and unseen the whole time, Pennywise lingered behind to give Amelia a red balloon. Seeing her hesitation, he added. "To establish our friendship."

Though still reluctant, Amelia timidly reached for the string and grasped it in her fingers, a small smile finally appearing on her face. Pennywise smiled in a way that only showed satisfaction. "Time to sleep then."

After Amelia had laid down, the clown took the balloon and tied the string around the leg of a picture frame on the nightstand. When he exited the bedroom from the window, Angel was the only one left in the room. She took a long look at the child wrapped in blankets, many tangled up thoughts running through her mind but none made itself clear.

The balloon suddenly popped noiselessly, instantly turning into black crystals that rained over Amelia without her feeling a thing. Probably because her eyelids were half-closed from sleep slowly taking over. Knowing that it was pointless, but still feeling the need to do it, Angel reached out to the girl and touched the back of her small hand with the tips of her fingertips.

 _Everything will be okay now, Amelia._

She turned and stood in front of the window, taking a look at the night sky. She was ready to slip from it to the outside world when she realized her hand had actually touched a human without passing through them.

"Angel...Myth..."

It was only a sleepy murmur, but she heard it anyway. She turned to the right with a gasp, locking eyes with the sleepy girl in the bed. The little one had its eyes fixated on her, too tired to express any form of emotion. Angel's eyes widened as she watched Amelia's eyes never wandering away from her. Because it was her she was looking at. Not anything on the wall behind her.

Amelia was so tired and in such a need of a good night's sleep that her vision was slightly blurred. The woman's figure, as well as other things around her, could be seen easily, but the facial features weren't clear enough. She heard someone call her name and turned just in time for her father to wrap her in his arms, relief, and sadness coming off of him in waves. He was shaken and tense, face tear-stained. A few moments passed before Amelia joined his crying, letting out the agony, worry, and fear she had felt the moment all of it began.

While burying her face in his shoulder, Amelia took a look at her window.

The lady was there no more.

* * *

 **I apologize for taking so long to update. Introducing a new character was very demanding, in my opinion. Comments and reviews are not obligatory but much appreciated.**


	7. How ignorant can you possibly be?

Jack landed on the freshly fallen snow covering the roof of Jamie's home, despite the fact that it had only been a week after the Easter Egg Hunt, and swiftly bent over the edge, peeking inside of a window.

Jamie was seated on the living room couch, taller and more built than the eight-year-old boy who had once been Jack's first believer. A lot had changed about Jamie, now a teenager of eighteen-years-old, but the excited gleam of his eyes hadn't faded over the years. Jack could still see that young boy in the passionate way Jamie was now talking to his parents about his university.

Too bad he couldn't talk to the brown-haired teen anymore. Although Jamie was the first kid that kept believing up to his late teens, a month before he turned eighteen his light had gone off on North's globe. It had struck Jack so hard that Greece had experienced a crazy snowfall in the middle of spring. It had hurt, knowing that his first believer didn't believe anymore, though deep inside him the winter spirit knew that it was inevitable.

Of course, he had gained a lot of believers throughout the years, but no one could ever replace Jamie. At least he could still come to see his favorite former believer. Just seeing that hearty smile on his face made Jack smile as well. No matter what, Jack would always care about the guy.

"Hey, Jack! What are you doing up there?" Jack's surprise was so great that he lost his grip on the roof and fell face-first on the snow-covered backyard of the house with a yelp. It took him a moment to recover from the fall and stand up, brushing the snow out of his hair.

"Are you alright, Jack?" Jenny asked with a wide smile, giggling at him from her house's fence beside Jamie's yard. Jack blinked, giving himself a moment to recognize the friendly face before a toothy smile stretched across his face. "Hey kiddo, you've been practicing your sneaking skills, I see! You got me back there!"

Jenny smiled excitedly. "I've been trying to sneak up on my classmates for a long time! You are the second one that didn't see me coming!"

"You are getting better then." He used his staff to lean on. "There aren't a lot of people that can sneak u-Woah!" He was interrupted by a snowball crashing against his face, sending him on his backside on the snow.

His ears rang with childish, girly laughter as he brushed the snow off of his face for the second time in less than two minutes and looked at Jenny in surprise. The brown-haired girl laughed a moment longer at the look on his face before she raised her right hand over the fence, revealing a snowball in her small fist. "Do you want to play?"

Jack's smile returned full-force, a new light of boyish mischief adding to its playfulness. "Some people I know would say that I am a bad influence on you." Instead of standing back up like a normal person, because he wasn't a normal person, after all, he shot up in the air and floated over the fence to Jenny's backyard, landing and scooping a handful of snow. "I say you're learning from the best!"

A massive snowball fight followed afterward between the mortal child and the winter spirit, soft snowballs flying through the air, aimed at the laughing, moving targets. Soon enough, more kids from the nearby houses joined the fight, making the small backyard look like a battlefield with little soldiers fighting against each other.

"It's amusing how a childish spirit such as him is one of the wise and powerful Guardians of childhood." Angel mused, watching down at the group from her spot on Jenny's rooftop. She had been following the winter spirit for a couple of hours, intending to find out Jack's weakness. Not physical, no. The true weaknesses, the ones that could ultimately destroy a person, were emotional. To ensure that your opponents were going down with no way of recovering was to make them feel empty, make them feel like they have lost everything. It was a guaranteed method of ruining someone. Angel knew that from personal experience. That night, ten years ago, had MiM been her enemy, she wouldn't be here now. It was only because the Man in Moon had no intention of harming her that night, that she had the time to become what she was now. Someone having nothing left to lose.

In Jack's case, the only weakness she had found was that young teen, Jamie Bennet. The spirit's first believer, from what she had gathered over the years from other spirits of the earth. But, he wouldn't be of use to her. Now that he was all grown up, his belief in the Guardian of Fun had faded to nothing. Still...the fondness shining in Jack's eyes at the sight of his first believer was greater than what Angel had thought in the first place. Thinking back to it, she had heard that Frost had been wandering around the globe for 300 years with no believers whatsoever before he became a Guardian after Jamie believed in him. So, it was only logical that Jack would be still fond of his first believer, even after that belief faded away.

Angel refocused on the childish display beneath her. The pleasure, this playful delight of a small kid, was evident on the spirit's face. More like radiating off of him in huge waves, if she wanted to be precise. Although it looked almost absurd for a Guardian to be so carefree and reckless, spending all of his time with kids instead of dedicating himself to his rightful duties, she had to admit that Jack was probably the one who represented the true meaning of being a Guardian. He didn't only protect the children when he had to and did his job as the winter spirit, but he also shared a close relationship with the children, gaining not only their belief but also their trust and love. After all, what was the point of being a protector of children, if you didn't spend time with them?

 _And clearly, he lives up to his title._

Then it clicked. It dawned on her. Jack shared a bond with his believers much stronger than the other Guardians did. Despite being around for a much shorter amount of time than them, Jack was much more emotionally bonded with his believers, whereas the others saw them more as a mean of survival. Taking away the children's belief in him would shatter him. Moreover, the fact that he had spent three centuries all alone would make the feeling of losing everything even stronger. He would go down the same way all of them would, only he would be the one not able to return.

It was so simple it put a smirk on her face. She slowly stood up from the rooftop watching as the group of kids uniting to try and cover Jack in snow.

 _It will be easier than I thought. To take all of those believers for me..._

 _Speaking of believers..._

Angel's mind found the moment to remind her of a pair of sleepy eyes, no older than six years old, staring at her beneath warm covers.

She gritted her teeth. She had refrained from mulling over last night's events up to this point, simply because she had found herself unable to handle the situation from the shock. She couldn't understand what had happened. The girl had muttered her name completely out of the blue and then she had looked at her. Actually _looked_ at her. Angel hadn't even tried to make Amelia believe in her, yet that had happened. It wasn't making any sense to her. Ten years now, she had tried to gain believers in every way she could think of, but the result was always the same. A failure. What had changed this time?

 _It can't be true. She couldn't have seen me. I must have misheard her..._

A soft nudge on her arm snapped her attention to Orion giving her a look of both confusion and worry. Remembering where she was and what she was supposed to be doing, the spirit glanced at the kids with Jack one last time before backing away from the edge so as to not be spotted by the spirit. Orion nudged her again, this time on the shoulder. In response, Angel stroked his mane absentmindedly.

"I want it to be true, Orion... I hope last night was real, I really do... But I have so many reasons to believe otherwise."

The pegasus blew softly on her face in an attempt to comfort her. Grateful for his efforts, she offered him a small smile and watched as his ears shot up in response. Her gaze shifted unintentionally towards a nearby house and to a certain window from which Fury was climbing out of. Her servant spread her wings and flew over to her, landing swiftly on Orion's back. "Mission accomplished, mistress."

Angel gave her a pointed look. "Was the drawing the boy made good?"

"Not just good, it was art!" Fury tossed her head back with pride. "I've never seen a better version of myself on paper."

The prideful attitude made Angel smirk playfully. "Good to hear. But next time, try not to show such excitement. I don't want you flying around while there are people who can see you."

Fury's lips stretched out to a smile that showed her fangs in all of their glory. "There's no such danger when you assign us servants to a specific person, my lady. Nobody else can see us then."

The woman rolled her eyes. She had learnt pretty early on her life as a spirit that she could choose when her creatures would be visible to humans and which humans for that matter, an advantage that allowed her to send her servants to different people in the form of either inspiration or fantasy, without having them spotted by random individuals in the process. Still, she didn't want her creations to take full advantage of that privilege by moving around cities and houses. She didn't want to risk them being seen without her will. Unfortunately some of them, just like Fury, never seemed to get the message.

"Still, you don't have to make a show of yourself every time." Thankfully, Fury got the warning tone, scratching her neck sheepishly. Her mistress looked at her for a moment longer, her mind elsewhere. "I believe there are some things I have to clear out."

* * *

"Stay close to where I can watch over you."

"Yes, daddy." The father nodded reluctantly and slowly returned back inside the house, leaving his daughter to play in the front yard while the day was sunny before the rainy hours started. Kids in Belgium valued the sunny weather too much to spend it inside and Amelia was no exception. The girl picked up her volleyball and started playing by herself, unaware that her father wasn't the only one watching her.

Angel leaned against a tree of the Hallerbos Forest for support, her eyes trained over the house across from her, watching the girl play. Her teeth subconsciously played with her bottom lip at the sight. It was frustrating to a degree, that she had decided to return back there to confirm last night's events but couldn't find it in herself to actually go over there.

"If she wants to play with the ball, she needs a playmate." Pennywise giggled from her other side as he watched the girl, then turned his head to the woman with an excited smile. "I can play with her!"

"The last thing she needs after what she went through is a horrifying freak like you." Fury interjected from her spot on the tree branch above them.

The clown's face turned into a combination of a childlike pout and a scowl fully directed on Fury. "Freak, you say? Don't get me started on your own monstrous appearance, human-bird!"

A growl rumbled in her throat as she facepalmed. "Oh god, you just went there..."

"Will you both quit it already?!" Angel snapped, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. "It's my decision who appears to her!"

Both beings stopped the bickering and turned their attention to her, while she glanced one more time at the child in the yard. She took in a long breath and slowly let it out through her nose. "Fury will return to the hideout, Pennywise stays with me."

The later smiled widely, clapping his hands excitedly to which the winged woman responded with a death glare before she took off towards the cave back in Pennsylvania.

Amelia held the volleyball in her hands and focused her gaze at the small window of the attic. She took a couple of steps back, calculating the distance as best she could before she threw the ball with both hands. It flew up about four feet, quite down from the window, and then returned to the ground, rolling away from her. The girl tilted her head and retrieved the ball, making another attempt with more strength. She got the same result but she wouldn't give up.

She bent her knees and added as much strength as she could in her arms. With a grunt of effort, she threw the ball high in the air and watched as it made its course. Despite her efforts, it didn't reach the window and instead started plummeting towards the ground. At least it was until a long gloved hand appeared from over the roof and grabbed it in midair.

Amelia gasped in surprise and could only stand there and watch as fiery red hair started to peak out of the roof, then a white forehead and at last, the face. That horrifying clown face with the red-lipped smile that made both children and adults sweat in fear. If it wasn't for the balloon he had given her the night before, claiming that they were friends, she would have run inside the house and hide under the covers of her bed.

"Very nice ball you have, Amy!" he giggled, his hand waving the ball back and forth. "Will you play with me?"

Amy looked between him and the ball nervously, unsure of what she should say. Her fingers started playing with her shirt, eyes peering up at him. "You want to play with me...?"

Pennywise tilted his head to the side, his smile serving as a striking contrast to his high-pitched, innocent voice. "You don't have another playmate, do you?"

Amy's grip visibly tightened in nervousness on her shirt, gaze dropping to the ground. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "No..."

"Then, we can play together with the vo-oooooh!" Amy raised her eyes up at him, her mouth opening in surprise when she saw the clown being lifted off of the roof by what looked like five dozens of red balloons in his hand. The creature let out sounds of excitement and kicked his legs in the air as the balloons slowly lowered him to the ground, a few feet away from her.

Pennywise took in her astonished expression with a giggle before he released the balloons from his hand and let them float up towards the sky. The girl's eyes followed the bright shapes to the sky, a soft 'wow' escaping her mouth. She didn't look away from the show on the sky until she felt a warm breath against her face.

The clown's face was mere inches away from hers, grinning mischievously. Amy gasped in surprise and fell back on her backside, throwing Pennywise into a fit of giggles.

"Oooh, you should have seen your face!" he laughed, dropping the almost forgotten volleyball into her lap and taking a few steps away from her. "Come on, Amy! Play with the clown!"

The child stared at him with wide eyes, giving time to her brain to process what was going on. After a few calming breaths that eased her previous unpleasant surprise, she slowly stood up with the ball clutched in her hands and gave the clown her most calculating look in an attempt to figure out whether he would attack her or not.

Then, she threw her ball at him.

Pennywise bent to his waist, avoiding the ball before it hit his head. Just like a child, he giggled excitedly, his hand extending behind him and grabbing the ball, returning it to her. "Do that again!"

Amelia gave a hesitant grin, accepting the ball from him. Aiming better this time, she threw it at him again. The clown dodged the shot with a backflip in the air, using his powers to make the ball return to the child immediately afterward. Amy stifled a soft giggle and threw the ball again.

This went on for several minutes, Amy trying to hit Pennywise with the ball, while he dodged every time with cries of 'oooh' and 'ahhh'. At one point, Amy couldn't contain her giggles anymore, letting both the clown and his mistress that watched from afar know that she was easing up to him.

The sight made Angel's tense muscles relax for seemingly no reason. Watching that little girl playing and having a great time with one of her most dangerous servants was encouraging in a strange way. The fact that the kid wasn't so afraid of the clown anymore sparked a small amount of hope inside of her. Hope that maybe the night before she had heard right.

She didn't realize when she had moved to the side of the house, just out of the small yard, watching silently.

Finally, Amelia managed to hit the clown square in the forehead, sending him tumbling back on the ground, legs raised in the air in a comical way. The kid stared at him in astonishment, not believing that she had managed to hit him after so many tries. Her eyes wandered over his fallen form, taking in his bizarre position, the way his long legs were sticking up in the air with the red pom poms on his shoes. The sight was most amusing.

She laughed out loud in joy, falling on her butt from the force of it. The longer she looked at him, the more she laughed, to the point that she had to hold her stomach. Pennywise flipped himself upright on the ground, frowning at the laughing child, making her laugh harder. Even Angel had to stifle a chuckle from behind the house.

The clown crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. "That wasn't funny."

Amy took a few deep breaths to calm down, but every time she glanced his way and met his pouting face, she had to stop herself from laughing out loud again. "No, it was very funny!"

However, her cheerful smile dropped when Pennywise let out a frustrated growl, effectively scaring her.

Angel frowned in dissatisfaction at that, coming forward to give the stupid clown a piece of her mind. After all that fun they had, trying to get the child to soften up to him, the foolish entity was going to ruin everything. She walked up from behind Pennywise and hissed at him. "Don't you dare scare her away! After all this time of playing with her, you get frustrated over a hit with the ball?! You don't get to scare her because of that!"

The clown looked up at her from his position on the ground with puppy eyes. "She was laughing at me."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "And that's a good excuse to get yourself worked up about it?!"

"She was being rude. And I didn't mean to scare her."

"Then do NOT growl at her!"

"You don't get to tell me what...-"

"I brought you to life, you idiot!"

"...you did?"

Angel tensed up at the sound of the soft voice behind her. The clown in front of her looked between her and the girl behind her back, grinning from ear to ear. His mistress slowly turned to face the child, its eyes staring up at her in wonder.

The spirit found herself unable to swallow. "You talked to me..."

Amy nodded in confirmation.

"And... you can see me?" the woman whispered, subconsciously leaning forward.

"Yes." answered the girl, offering a toothy smile. "You're very pretty."

A breathless laugh escaped Angel's mouth, reminding her how to breathe again. Her hands came up to cover her mouth and hide the barely contained smile that broke on her face. "You...think so?"

She kneeled before the kid without a second thought, looking closely at her small face with astonishment, her hands gripping tightly her dress. "You really think that...I'm pretty, Amy?"

Amelia nodded happily, observing the enchanting eyes of the woman. "Yes, miss Angel."

Her lips stretched into a painful smile, her vision suddenly blurry. A child could see her. Finally, after so many years alone, she was believed in. This child was her very first _believer._

Amy's smile fell in a worried expression. "Why are you crying, miss Angel Myth?"

The woman laughed through the tears that stained her face, shaking her head with a carefree shrug. "No reason, little one."

Amy gave her a worried once over and turned to address Pennywise, only to realize that the clown was nowhere in sight, a fact that made her frown with confusion. "Where did he go...?"

Angel took in a breath and wiped her wet eyes, turning to look at the empty spot the clown had been a while ago. "I must have dismissed him without realizing it..."

Amy looked at her wide-eyed. "You made him disappear?"

The woman gave a small smile. "Well, I created him in the first place, so it'd be only natural if I could do that."

The girl's face broke into a bright, excited smile. "You did?! And Fury?!"

"Yes." she nodded, her lips curling further upwards.

"And that tall man...uh, Slenderman?! Can you create other things, too?! Like, fairies and dragons and unicorns?!"

Angel giggled as she watched Amy practically bouncing on the spot. "Yes, yes! Anything you could ever imagine, I can make it."

"That's amazing! And, last night... all of those creatures, they were yours?!"

"Yes, they were. I was there as well."

Amelia took a moment to think last night's events before she nodded in agreement upon remembering Angel standing in front of her window. "Yes, I remember you. Why didn't you come earlier, though?"

Angel raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? I was there all the time, you just couldn't see me."

Amy's face scrunched up in confusion. "Oh...I remember that you were in front of my window, but I don't think you were there before Pennywise and the others left me to sleep..."

Angel's smile slowly faded. "This can't be right. There must have been something that made you believe in me otherwise, you wouldn't have seen me at all last night. You believed when you saw my creatures, didn't you?"

The child tilted her head to the side. "How could I do that? I hadn't known you create them, nobody told me."

 _Then...how did she believe?_

The spirit could feel a sense of emptiness creeping up her stomach. "Did...did anything happen after my creatures left? Anything before you saw me?"

Amy frowned in concentration, trying to remember anything that would be a good enough answer for the woman in front of her. "The only thing I remember is Pennywise's balloon, the one he gave me, popped and then I think a rain of crystals fell on my head. But, nothing else."

Angel shook her head, the emptiness traveling up to wrap around her heart.

 _This can't be right. I had tried making my servants come in contact with other children, but it never worked the way it did last night. So, if direct contact isn't the way to make children believe, then how did she believe?_

An invisible knot tightened around her heart almost to the point that it hurt.

 _How can I make others believe like her?_

Both individuals turned when Amy's father called for her from inside the house. "Amy! Come inside, the food is ready!"

"I'm coming daddy!" she responded, turning to Angel once more. "I have to go, but would you like to come...-"

When Amy turned to address the spirit, she was met with an empty yard.

* * *

Angel found herself riding in a forest of Canada, a small escape from the irritating thoughts that had been raking her brain since her meeting with Amelia. She had tried to figure out how she had managed to make the child believe in her, retracing her steps the night she saved her and thinking over every possible scenario, but so far she had come up with nothing. A ride in a Canadian forest was her attempt at easing her thoughts for the time being.

The peace of the night, along with a soft breeze that caressed her face, seemed to wash away the tension on her muscles, making her body slump with a single sigh. Angel slowly lowered herself to the grass below her feet, laying on her back on it. Her hair was spread around her head like a hallo, serving as a soft pillow. Her position left her gaze openly at the dark blue of the night sky, heavy with shining stars the size of a speck of dust, from Angel's point of view.

Thankfully, there was no moon in the direction she was facing. She wouldn't stand to be stuck with MiM's face looking down at her the whole night. He, of all people, was the one Angel actually hated. Hated for bringing her back to the world of the living, an unseen powerful being, with her family gone and no one to keep her company. Of course, her creatures were loyal servants, even friends, to her but what she really wanted, what she needed, was the human company. A friend of her own kind. And MiM had snatched that hope away from her, giving her powers that provided her creatures with belief, but never left any specks for her as well.

She breathed deeply, mentally chasting herself for thinking about this stuff now that she was supposed to be relaxing from all of those. Her body became one with the grass when she exhaled, making her feel almost sleepy. Sleipnir trotted over to her and sat down beside her head, laying his head on the grass. Angel reached a hand up and stroked his face absentmindedly. This was what she needed. A break from everything. A break from her spiritual life.

She didn't know for how long she had stayed there gazing at the stars, but she guessed it was a long time. However, the peaceful silence was interrupted by the feeling of a shiver running down her spine, alerting her of someone's presence watching her closely. Sleipnir's head shot up and scanned the area with his gaze, ears perked up in alert before he decided to stand back up. Angel settled for simply sitting up, her eyes shifting from the sky to the calm waters of the lake.

A huff of Sleipnir's informed her of her visitor right before a voice echoed around the trees. "You know, I've been thinking about this since our little encounter..."

Angel tried to keep a calm composure while her eyes darted here and there, trying to spot the owner of the voice in the darkness around her that suddenly seemed darker than before. Sleipnir was having trouble as well, huffing and tossing his head in every direction, as if the man was nowhere and everywhere at once.

"...but I still cannot comprehend; how ignorant can you possibly be?"

"Huh?" She let out a soft gasp and shot to her feet when Pitch's shadow appeared on a tree. Sleipnir hit one of his hooves on the ground aggressively and made to charge at the shadow but stopped short when another shadow appeared on a different tree.

And then another.

And another.

And another.

Until Angel was surrounded by shadows with Pitch's shape.

"You've been around for far less than any other spirit in this world..." the shadow to her right whispered.

"...but long enough for rumors to reach your ears." another shadow added.

"And yet, the only thing you seem to be sure of is the existence of the Guardians group." a third shadow chimed in. Angel's neck was starting to protest from the abrupt turn of her head all around her.

"You don't have so much as a decent amount of information about any other spirit, including myself." a shadow to her left stated.

"Not to mention that you lack any knowledge concerning my history with that group of fools when every other spirit in this world knows." a fifth shadow snarled at her.

"And then, you so recklessly and foolishly decide to engage in battle with me the first time we meet, ignoring the common sense any other being would have in your place, to run away from the personification of fear itself." one more shadow behind her continued.

"To top it off, you ask _me_ to teach _you_ combat skills, with the pathetic excuse of wishing to be on equal terms once you decide that you want to get your memories back from me." each and every shadow spoke at the same time, creating a loud echo all around the forest, causing to flinch. The tone of the shadows turned into a taunt. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you spent these ten years of your spiritual existence isolated in that cave."

Angel forced herself to swallow back the instinctive urge to deny him. She held back because she knew she would be lying, and she had a feeling that he would see right through her lie. He was, sadly, very much right. Those ten years, from the night she had woken up as a spirit, were spent in mourning her family, or more accurately her sacrificing her life to save them, only to find out that it had all been for nothing. And after the mourning, came the building of what was now her new home, along with various attempts of gaining believers. She had been so focused on doing all those, that she had somehow managed to isolate herself from the other spirits, therefore never hearing anything about the Guardians and the Boogeyman, apart from the basics of course.

Pitch took her silence as a response. "So I'm right? How sad, milady..."

"Knock it off already!" she snapped through gritted teeth. "I find it hard to believe that you seek me out just to mock me, so stop being a coward and tell me what you want at once! And for the love of everything that is fictional, reveal yourself! I don't even know which shadow to address!"

His deep chuckle echoed around the trees, unnerving even Sleipnir. She took a few steps back to take in more of the scenery around her, trying to make out his silhouette from within the darkness. She stopped short, though, when a whisper blew over her left ear.

"Boo."

Angel reacted on instinct. She turned on her heel and shot a wave of black crystals from her hand. Pitch slipped out of the way a moment before the wave could make contact with his face.

"Be careful with those. Somebody could get hurt." he chuckled, his eyes shifting momentarily to throw a warning look at Sleipnir, who was ready to pounce on him at any given moment. The enormous horse lost some of his courage with that look from the Nightmare King.

Angel glared hard at him. "Sneak up on me like that again and I will make sure to hurt something more valuable than your face."

Pitch grinned mischievously, hands clasping loosely behind his back. "It's a pleasure to see that you still carry that sparking temper from our last encounter with you, Myth."

She was ready to throw another comeback at him but held back once again. She was letting him get under her skin by responding to his taunting and she was wasting both time and energy on pointless exchanged words. It simply wasn't worth it. Plus, she was infuriated by how much satisfaction she was giving him that way.

She straightened her back and squared her shoulders proudly, staring him in the eye as she forced her anger to calm down. "What do you want from me, Pitch?"

"As I recall, my dear, you are the one who wants something from me. Unless you changed your mind." he said, raising an invisible eyebrow.

Something in Angel's mind clicked at his words. "That's why you came to find me? You're going to teach me how to fight?"

He shook his head with a smirk. "I'm afraid you'll have to give me the real reason behind your request if you wish for me to consider it."

"I told you, I want...-"

"Don't mistake me for a fool, my fallen Angel." the darker spirit growled out, eyes hardening on her. "Wanting your memories back isn't even remotely near a good excuse to ask a complete stranger to become your teacher."

Angel took in a deep breath and slowly let it out through her nose. _Busted._

"I want to fight against the Guardians."

Pitch barked out a laugh. "You wouldn't stand a chance."

"And how would you know that?!" she frowned, adopting a defensive tone.

"Because I have already faced them twice, milady. If you had the slightest idea of what's going on around you, you'd have known that." he smiled, showing crooked teeth.

"Then fill in the blanks for me. Help me understand and learn." she huffed in annoyance. He eyed her carefully, examining her body language until his eyes found her amethyst ones. A minute later, he turned his back at her and started slipping back into the shadows. "I don't like wasting time on lost causes."

Angel's eyes narrowed in frustration, stubbornness settling in her bones. Deciding to push his buttons until he changed his mind, she concentrated and reached out to him, digging into the depths of his mind that were connected to the imagination. For the first time since she became a spirit, she spoke without thinking.

"It's strange, you know; A dick like you having such a strong craving about such a simple fantasy. You, sitting on a green hill with a raven-haired girl by your side-AH!"

Pitch's nightmare sand hit her square in the chest, pushing her back against a tree trunk hard enough that she felt a stabbing pain on her back. She opened her eyes from when she had closed them with the impact to see the dark spirit in a way she had never seen before. There were so much rage and malice in his eyes, so much fury it gave her the impression he was going to murder her right then and there. She thought she saw a flicker of another equally strong feeling for a moment, but she couldn't be sure.

"Don't. You. Dare." He growled out in a low voice, emphasizing each word by reducing the inches separating their faces.

Sleipnir neighed loudly and rushed to help his mistress, charging at Pitch who had his back turned to the horse. The dark spirit didn't bother to even take his eyes off of Angel's. Before Sleipnir could land a hit on Pitch, nightmare sand emerged between the spirits and the mythological horse, transforming into a Nightmare that glared threateningly at Sleipnir. The two horses exchanged hateful gazes and stood on their hind legs, neighing loudly and ready to attack each other.

Until Sleipnir smelt a familiar scent coming from the Nightmare in front of him, which made him land back to his eight legs and stare at the other horse with wide eyes and ears perked up. Onyx, the Nightmare facing him, mimicked his actions and regarded him with her own surprised gaze. They stood like that, facing each other with confusion as to what they should do.

Meanwhile, Pitch's eyes burned holes in Angel's face.

"I am not fond of others prying in my mind, _dear_." he spat the last word as if it was venom. "Though I understand that you might not be aware of how disturbing it is since you must not have experienced it _yourself._ Allow me to give you a taste of your own medicine, then."

As he spoke, his hands came to rest on the tree behind her, on either side of her head, trapping her in. Angel's eyes darted from his hands to his face and so forth as specks of black sand started curling around his fingertips in an almost teasing way, uncomfortably close to her head.

Sleipnir snorted threateningly when he noticed, glaring at the Boogeyman's back until Onyx's head blocked his view of the man. The enormous horse's glare slipped from his face for a moment, before it tried to move around the Nightmare and reach its mistress and her attacker.

Onyx would have none of that, though, and she swiftly moved to the side, blocking the male's way once more with a determined look in her eyes, but no sign of hostile behavior. Sleipnir stopped in his tracks, huffed in annoyance and took a couple of steps back. He tried to move in from the other side, only for the mare to stop him again. The conflict was evident in the eyes of both creatures, the need to protect their masters battling with their wish to not cause harm to one another.

"Being the Boogeyman provides me with very useful capabilities." Pitch rumbled, glare hardening as if his words were insulting. "I know people's greatest fears without even trying. I can tell what your worst fear is just by looking in these precious amethysts."

Angel pressed her head harder against the tree, cursing her heart rate for not calming down. He gave her a dark grin that made her miss every other facial expression he had thrown her way on their first meeting. Because none of those had been coated in so much darkness and sadistic pleasure as this one. "And would you look at that! You're afraid that you'll always be...alone."

Her eyes widened, the fear he had craved for from the first time they met appearing inside her beautifully dark orbs. The sick pleasure her fear was giving him was too much for him to stop then. "Unloved. Uncared for. You fear of living a life with no one to share it with."

Her heart could be heard in her ears and her stomach was twisting into a tight knot. "I guess your first night as a spirit must have been a very traumatic one. Waking up with every person you ever knew gone, people not even seeing you. How...unwanted you must have felt. How invisible."

Her nails dug into the tree trunk, her muscles tensed to the point they hurt. "Let me do the honors then, my fallen Angel. Welcome to the club. Where lie all the forgotten, unwanted, slowly fading from existence spi...-"

"ENOUGH!" she screamed in his face with all the power she could master, her cry bouncing off the trees and scaring every animal around them. The two horses behind them jumped in alarm, staring at their masters nervously.

Angel's eyes were closed, her head bending forward in exhaustion from the emotional whirlwind inside of her. Her dark hair fell like a curtain in front of her face, shielding her from the man that had her trapped. Pitch, in a rare demonstration of mercy, fell silent. He didn't move away, nor closer. He stayed where he was, observing with delight at her unique, delectable fear, giving little thought to the fact that he had heard a deeper, smoother undertone in her scream as if she had yelled using two different voices.

Amelia's smiling face flashed for a moment in Angel's panic-filled mind for no apparent reason. Even so, it was strangely enough to move her. She finally managed to raise her head after a while of trying to calm down and parted her eyelids to face him, the storm in her purple orbs slowly settling down. "Alright... I won't mess with your mind again, and you won't mess with mine."

He didn't talk back to her and Angel took the evident absence of tense muscle in his arms as her cue to continue.

"I'm not backing down from my request. I need the training. And despite what you say, you have nothing to lose."

The darker spirit huffed a laugh, pushing himself away from her, allowing them both some form of personal space. "Your foolishness is outstanding, asking to get involved in something you know nothing about. How many times do I have to tell you, woman, if you knew what I have done, what I am willing to do...you'd be running away from me instead."

"I'll take my chances." she breathed, resting her hand on Sleipnir for support when the horse came to stand protectively by her side, hiding his shame for being unable to help her earlier. "Besides, you're the only one I can learn from, both in combat and in this spiritual history. It's not like I have many options."

"Poor you." he mocked, Onyx huffing angrily beside him, radiating her master's emotions.

Angel felt Sleipnir stand a bit straighter beside her. It gave her a glimpse of spite.

"Think about what's in for you." Pitch raised a non-existent eyebrow in curiosity. "You'll get to kick my ass every day. You can't pass up such a tempting opportunity."

The man smiled crookedly, despite himself. "Tempting opportunity indeed."

The spirit of legends hesitantly brought her hand up for him to shake. "Partners in crime, then?"

A heavy silence stretched between them as Pitch looked thoughtfully at her hand. Angel waited patiently, both her and her servant watching the man closely.

Ever so slowly, Pitch took her hand.

"Partners in crime." He repeated and they shook hands.

His hold on her hand became a little firmer and his lips formed a smirk. "Watch your step as you land."

"Wha-" Before she could form her thoughts into a sentence, he pulled hard at her hand, sending her falling behind him towards a particularly dark shadow on the ground which swallowed her whole. She yelped in surprise as she found herself falling through absolute darkness, a faint neighing letting her know that Sleipnir was unwillingly following her on her fall.

She wanted to say that it was awful but honestly she would be lying. She couldn't see anything through the darkness that looked thick enough to cut with a knife, cold air was blowing all around her, giving no indication of the direction of her fall, and Sleipnir's neighs were echoing around as if they were in a cave. To Angel, it felt like a rollercoaster. Without the safe feeling of a seat supporting you, but still.

As suddenly as she had been sucked into the shadow, she was literally spat out of it, crashing onto the ground in a forest and rolling wildly on her side before finally coming to a stop, her hair covering her eyes. There was the sound of something heavy falling into the water soon after her fall but she didn't pay it much attention. She stayed on the ground for a few moments, giving her aching muscles time to recover. Thankfully, she knew that being a spirit meant that she couldn't be harmed by mortal means of weaponry, no matter how much it hurt. Still, that didn't stop her from cursing the one responsible. "That leper son of a three-legged donkey... When I get my hands on him I will give him the beating of his life..."

She pushed herself on her hands and blew her hair out of her face to take a look at her surroundings. The waterfall that greeted her eyes helped her realize that Pitch had sent her back to her hideout. Of course, he knew where it was, one of his nightmares had spied on her. She sat upon the grass and moved her gaze around, searching for her trusted eight-legged horse. "Slei-"

Her eyes landed on eight crystal legs sticking out of the small river. Apparently, Sleipnir's landing had been most unfortunate for him, judging by his upsidedown state. She couldn't help the ringing laughter that burst out of her. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and laughed harder, heat gathering in her cheeks.

Sleipnir neighed loudly, rolling to his side and standing up, water dripping all over him. He snorted angrily, glaring at the water running around his legs. Angel's laughter got louder when he shook his body to get rid of the annoying drops. She slowly stood up and walked over to him, trying to contain her giggles. "Oh, poor Sleipnir..."

The horse stepped out of the water and up to her, nuzzling her raised open palm. She stroked his nose softly. "I don't know about you, but I want another ride of that."

The creature's snort made her chuckle. "Come on, grumpy servant. Let's go get the others to return from their night walk."


	8. Damn right you should be scared of me

Angel raised her hand to brush her fingers against the waterfall, the cold water making her skin momentary prickle. She let her hand cherish the liquid feeling as she laid back against the lion of Nemea, one of her most recent creations, which was currently curled up and served as a pillow for its mistress.

What was she doing laying comfortably on her servant just outside of her hideout? Unfortunately for her, she was simply waiting. There were two things she could be waiting for. The first was news about the squad she had sent to the Warren earlier that morning. The second was a sign of Pitch Black, who was supposed to come to train her, at which point of the day, she had no idea of. The self-centered bastard hadn't bothered to let her know when he would stop by.

The lion raised its head and growled lowly in its throat. Angel sensed the new presence before it made itself known.

"Having a break off from work, I see."

Speak of the devil.

"You finally chose to appear. Honestly, you shouldn't let a woman wait for-"

The lion's sudden growl made her snap her head up in surprise, just in time to see something black approaching her fast. She jumped away at the last moment, rolling on her side on the forest ground. Turning her gaze back, she saw the one end of Pitch's scythe having stuck on the spot she was previously occupying.

"What in the name of Lucifer?!" She screamed at him as she stood up, a storm clouding her eyes. She had barely finished her sentence when Pitch raised the scythe and swung it at her again. She raised a wave of crystals as a shield, gasping when it dissolved after barely taking the blow.

"Always be prepared for an attack when you know the enemy is close!" He yelled back at her, an amused smirk dancing on his lips. Her response was a death glare. Her lion acted on its own, jumping in the air and trapping the handle of the scythe between its teeth before the dark spirit could attack her a third time. Pitch gritted his teeth in anger, sending a wave of black sand at the lion. The move forced it to let go of the scythe to paw at the sand as a counter-attack.

It worked. The lion's attention turned to Pitch the second the sand had been dealt with. It roared at Pitch's angry face and leaped in the air towards him. As if in slow motion, Pitch raised his scythe and pierced the lion of Nemea before it could land on him. The creature exploded in a rain of crystals which turned black the moment they got separated from each other.

"Hey!" Pitch turned around and received a wave of crystals square in the chest, the force throwing him back against a tree trunk. He grunted in pain and looked up at a very pissed off Angel.

"You..." Black crystals swirled behind her upper back. "...don't..." Two long tentacles started forming on her back. "...mess..." The tips turned sharp and pointy like daggers. "...with my creatures!"

Her left hand guided the left tentacle towards Pitch, clashing with his scythe. He pushed the scythe against the tentacle and took a few steps forward, forcing her back. He swung from his back, making her block with the right.

Angel used the other tentacle to hit his back. He jumped away and swung at her feet, making her stuck the tentacles in the ground and use them to raise herself high off the ground. Pitch smirked.

"First mistake."

The snarl on Angel's face changed into a look of confusion right before the scythe cut her tentacles in half. She found herself crashing on the ground with a yelp and a deep 'thump', her side receiving most of the impact.

She pushed herself into a sitting position with a groan, holding her ribs as she glared up at him. Pitch kept his smirk. "Don't use both weapons to flee. You stay open and vulnerable, with no means of protecting yourself."

"I'm blinded by the light of your wisdom, sensei." she mocked, slowly standing back on her feet.

"Keep one tentacle free for protection or use your crystals as an alternative." Obviously ignoring her, he finished his lecture.

Angel relaxed a little, recognizing that he was simply teaching her how to fight like she had asked him to. She twisted her neck, hearing a few pops here and there. "Don't let yourself open. Got it."

"Did you?"

Angel ducked, narrowly missing the scythe. The blade came down at her a second time, causing her to backflip away. The third time the scythe came at her she manifested a tentacle to block it and another to hit it away. Pitch swung at her feet. She jumped in the air and blocked the scythe before she landed.

Pitch's lips twitched upwards the slightest bit.

Angel attacked this time, slashing at him, trying to find an opening that couldn't be protected. A neigh sounded behind her and she turned a moment too late to receive a hit in the gut that knocked her to the ground. Concentration lost, her tentacles disappeared right before a black hoove pressed against her collarbone.

She glared up at the nightmare holding her down. The dark horse put his glaring face in hers and huffed to intimidate her. Angel's eyes narrowed. "Bad horse."

The surprised expression she witnessed on the nightmare's face was more than she could have asked for at the time. Its master came into view behind it, placing a hand on its mane. "Second mistake. Don't only focus on your enemy. Keep in mind that you could be attacked from all sides."

She wanted to snap at him, she really did, but at the same time, she knew he was right. Facing against the Guardians was bound to have them attacking her from different directions, so she should be prepared for that scenario. She huffed, looking away. "Noted."

The horse took its leg off of her and stood by Pitch's side while he waited for her to stand back up. Without offering his hand to her, the prick.

Angel dusted herself off and stood in front of the two. "You must know two things."

He raised a non-existent eyebrow in amusement. "Is that so?"

"Yes. First, I'm going to punch you." Her fist connected with his jaw a moment later, knocking him down with a yelp. His horse jumped in surprise, looking between the two. Pitch felt for blood that wasn't there and gave her an incredulous look.

"Secondly, your nightmare needs some lecture about manners."

He slowly rose to his feet, slightly dazed. "What was that for?!"

She shrugged. "I don't appreciate being shadow-transported without warning."

He blinked in realization, a small smirk forming on his lips. "You won't have a warning in a battle."

The nightmare suddenly charged at her. Angel took a startled step back and raised her hand, a wave of crystals shooting up from under the horse and slamming it against a tree branch.

She turned back to throw another wave at another horse and manifested her tentacles to use a second before a third one came from her right. She barely managed to raise her tentacles as a shield when Pitch's scythe came down on her. Being unprepared for the attack, she fell back from the force of the collision.

"You really are enjoying yourself, aren't you?" she groaned out.

Pitch stood over her, a look on his face that actually sent a shiver down her spine. "You don't keep an open mind."

She rolled away from the scythe's strike with a yelp, throwing him a wave he easily dodged. "You're only relying on your few skills."

He swung at her again, sending a wave of black sand at her back when she managed to avoid his weapon. The sand sent her flying and crashing painfully on the ground. Her breath was knocked out of her as she tried to stand on her trembling limbs.

She let out a cry of surprise as another nightmare stepped on her back, pinning her face-first on the ground. Out of the corner of her eye and beyond the blur caused by the pain on her back, she could see five more nightmares approaching, with Pitch leading them on foot. "You have powers beyond this, so make use of them!"

Her eyes widened in realization and her breath caught in her throat.

 _So that's what you were talking about._

The nightmares lowered their heads menacingly, preparing.

 _I was naive. In order to have a chance against spiritual opponents, I have to use my powers to their full extent. I can't simply rely on combat techniques._

Pitch raised his scythe to strike, the nightmares charging forward at her.

 _I know I am powerful. And with his help... I will become capable of creating my own **army**!_

A deafening roar echoed around the forest as Chimaira crashed against the nightmare on top of Angel, both creatures rolling on the ground. The commotion startled the other nightmares and their master to a stop. Angel turned her head to see Chimaira holding a squirming nightmare in her two mouths. The monster gave a death glare at the horse's comrades before crashing it in its jaws. Angel smirked.

Pitch turned, a snarl on his face. "Myth-!"

A bird cry covered his voice, turning the nightmares' attention to the sky. A big bird with wings the color of fire flew above their heads, circling above them. Pitch examined it for a minute before his eyes widened. "That-"

The phoenix hovered above Angel, just as the nightmares had turned their attention back to her, and spread its wings. The feathers were engulfed in flames that momentarily blinded the Nightmare King and scorched the nightmares.

Pitch rubbed his aching eyes in frustration. When he opened them, he saw the blurry image of something black and big coming his way, right before he was violently pushed against a tree, his back smashing against it with such force that it shook the branches above his head. His eyes opened wide from the shock of the pain. He was aware of the crystal wave that had hit him wrapping around him and the tree, pinning him against it like a restraint, but the surprising speed of all that was going on around him and the need to recover from the back-breaking impact didn't allow him to do anything before it was too late.

Angel's breathing was shallow from the effort it took for her to act so fast. She hadn't needed to use her powers this fast before, neither for creating creatures nor for throwing crystal waves. Doing it for the first time in a matter of seconds had a clearly bad effect on her. Despite that, though, she slowly walked over to the restrained spirit, her hand extended in front of her to control the swirling crystals around Pitch. "Here...I made use of my powers."

Pitch stared at her with a surprised look on his face, processing everything that had just happened. The fact that she had managed to surprise him made the corners of her lips curl upwards in a self-satisfied grin. Which was all it took for Pitch to snap out of his shocked state and act to wipe that smug grin off of her face.

With a toothy smirk and a laugh, he disappeared on the ground and blended with the shadows, easily slipping out of the restrains. Angel's grin dropped to a look of shock and she cursed. "Merde!" *

The sound of hooves caused her to turn her head the moment when three nightmares attacked Chimaira and pushed her to the ground, trampling her to dust. Angel gritted her teeth and made to step in, but froze on the spot before she could get her hands on the dark horses.

The blade of Pitch's scythe was only a breath away from her throat, while the man himself was standing right behind her, his chest pressing against her back, trapping her between himself and his weapon.

Silence fell between the two. Only their breathing could be heard in the forest as if suddenly every other sign of life had left it empty. Angel could feel the blade against the skin of her throat and she had to tilt her head to put some distance between her and the deadly thing, no matter how small that distance was. She was vaguely aware of Pitch leaning close to her right ear.

"Despite the...unexpected effort, you just showed, you will have to do much more than that, my dear." He emphasized his words by pressing the blade closer to her throat, making her head tilt back as much as it could. Angel bit back a curse that came to mind at the smugness in his voice. It was clear that he wanted to spite her when he kept going. "You clearly have no potential and, judging by your ignorance regarding the Guardians, you most likely don't even know them. Why should you go against them for no reason whatsoever, I wonder."

Angel turned into a crystal wave and hit him beneath the jaw, slipping out of his trap. He yelped in a combination of surprise and pain, taking a couple of steps back to regain his balance and holding his jaw, while she transformed back a few feet away from him.

When he regarded her with a glare, she returned it boldly, her tentacles forming on her back. "You talk too much."

* * *

Five hours later, Angel found herself knocked on the ground for the 46th time that day. She lied there for a while, trying to catch her breath. All these hours of fighting against Pitch had made her a panting mess and if she wasn't immortal and already dead, she would have gained quite the collection of bruises all over her body.

"You're not even trying."

She closed her eyes in frustration. _That asshole..._

"You're supposed to bring to life the children's creations. So, even in battle, be creative! Your moves are too predictable."

Angel slowly pushed herself to her feet, panting still as she regarded Pitch with a glare. "You know...I've met a lot of pricks in my life, but you...you are a fucking cactus."

She barely managed to dodge a swing from his scythe, only to get hit by a wave of nightmare sand that sent her crashing against a tree. Pitch took a few steps closer to her. "Instead of making sarcastic comments to hide your wounded pride, try actually learning something. From what I've seen so far, it seems I am simply wasting my time with you."

"How can you say that I am not trying?!" she barked, her hands grabbing onto the tree to pull herself back to her feet. "You must be blind to claim such a thing after all these hours of getting my ass handed to me by you!"

"Then perhaps you're just that weak. Apparently all this beating hasn't convinced you of that fact yet." he stated, sending a Nightmare to her. Angel looked tiredly at the charging mare and raised her hand in front of her, calling the first thing that came to her mind.

A white-gloved hand appeared out of nowhere and wrapped around the horse's throat, surprising the creature to a halt. The clown before the horse smiled widely at the surprised creature, his grip tightening to the point that some more pressure could break any mortal neck. Drool dripped from the clown's bottom lip as his golden eyes stared the Nightmare down.

"Tasty tasty, beautiful fear..." he growled before opening his mouth further than it was possible and dug his long needle-like teeth on the Nightmare's head. The horse turned to dust, a big mouthful of it ending up inside the clown's mouth, who munched on it happily. "Mmm, crunchy..."

"I'm glad you like it..." Angel breathed out, leaning against the tree in exhaustion. The clown licked his lips with his unnaturally long tongue before cleaning his fingers as well.

"What is this...?"

Both the clown and his mistress turned to witness a wide-eyed Pitch staring at them as if they had grown a second head. It was a justified reaction, to say the least. Pitch could have expected his Nightmare to be attacked by one of Angel's creatures, hit by her crystal waves, sliced down by her tentacle weapons, anything sort of that. But never, not once in all his time of being a spirit, had his Nightmares been eaten by a clown, supernatural or otherwise.

" _This_ is someone I believe you're either going to love or hate. Though, my bets are on the latter." she responded, her breathing slightly calming down from the brief pause from the fighting. She glanced at the creature beside her, finding it smiling and drooling as it stared at Pitch with a look that could only be described as immense _craving._

She wasn't surprised when she saw Pitch's eyes widen even more upon noticing how the clown was looking at him. She couldn't say that Pitch was scared because he clearly wasn't, but he was very much shocked. "By the way, I should introduce you two. Pitch, this is Pennywise. Pennywise, meet Pitch. Feast away."

Pennywise lunged with bared monstrous teeth and an animalistic growl before she could even finish her command. The Boogeyman jumped back in surprise and instinctively called forth half a dozen Nightmares, much to the clown's delight. He never changed his course towards Pitch, crashing instead against one of the Nightmares, pulling it to the ground with him on top, his teeth deep into the horse's snout. The Nightmare whined in panic and tried to shake him off, making the clown growl and snap his jaws shut, biting off the horse's entire snout and reducing it to dust in the process.

He turned in time to grab the leg of a second Nightmare in the air before it had time to trample him, but instead of pushing it away, he pulled it to him and bit down on the leg, tearing it off of the horse and destroying it. Turning to his left, he swung with his arm and sent another Nightmare flying back towards a tree, the force of the collision forcing it back to its original dust form.

Instead of standing back up, Pennywise crouched down on his hands and knees and jumped at Pitch before he had time to move out of the way. They both crashed on the ground, the clown's long legs pressing down on the Boogeyman's sides, pinning his arms to his body in the process. The three remaining Nightmares attacked him simultaneously, the two from both sides and the third from the back. Making sure to not allow the Boogeyman any chance to escape him, Pennywise grabbed the two horses by the throat, completely ignoring the third one on his back, and threw them away with a snarl.

His hungry, golden gaze returned to the Boogeyman as he grabbed the horse on his back and pulled it to the ground beside its master, breaking it to bits on the forest floor. The two males stared each other down for two seconds before the clown threw his open mouth towards Pitch's face. His teeth sank deep into grey flesh and scratched against bone, producing a blood-chilling scream from his victim. Which was strange, since a bite to the face would have killed the spirit instantly.

That was when Pennywise got the time to see what exactly he was biting.

Somehow, probably while he was taking care of the last three Nightmares, Pitch had managed to free one of his arms and had used it as a barrier between his face and Pennywise's jaws. And now, as a result, Pennywise was biting onto Pitch's arm, the man's thin arm looking like it would break under the pressure of those enormous jaws.

A black liquid, which Pennywise assumed was the Boogeyman's blood, was oozing out of the wounded flesh and into the clown's mouth, making his eyes roll to the back of his head at the overflowing fear he was tasting on his tongue. The Boogeyman was practically made out of fear! It was like a waterfall of terror was running down Pennywise's throat and he no more cared that he hadn't managed to bite the man's face off. Growls of delight rumbled in his throat as he shook his head, causing more of the delicious blood to pour in his mouth, completely ignoring Pitch's futile attempts to pull his arm away from the clown's mouth while still trapped beneath him.

Pitch was containing his screams purely out of pride. He wouldn't allow himself to be humiliated by a clown, no matter how unbearable the burning pain all over his arm was. But he would be damned if he didn't admit that it _hurt._ It hurt so, so bad. He had never experienced such pain in the past centuries, not even when he was alive. He couldn't contain his hisses and growls of pain escaping through his gritted teeth with every shake the monster above him made.

"You said I am weak."

Despite the torture his arm was receiving, Pitch's attention snapped to the woman standing several feet behind the clown above him, seeing that in the time it took for her creature to attack him, she had managed to regain enough strength and stamina to not need the tree to lean on anymore. Still, her body language betrayed how tired she was, contrasting the determination in her voice as she spoke.

"That's what you've been trying to do from the very start of our lesson. If you call the beating with minimum explanation a 'lesson'. You wanted to prove to me that I am weak, so I would give up and leave you alone, didn't you?" Pitch gave her a glare filled with hate, a look that had never crossed his face before, not even when he was facing against the Guardians. Never before had he felt the desire to rip another person to shreds so much. No, that wasn't true. He had felt it before, once, he just never thought that he would feel it again.

"Well, guess what! No matter how many times you push me down, beat me or overpower me, I won't give up! Throw me down a million times, it doesn't change the result! I will still rise!" she yelled, black crystals collecting in swirls around her curled fingers.

Pitch changed his mind at that moment. Read his feelings more clearly. He didn't hate her. He was simply infuriated by her. She had dared injure him, something that not even his enemies had ever managed to do when she was clearly much weaker than he could ever be. She had been disrespectful towards him, ignorant as to how easy it was for him to make her suffer and now she was standing proud and proving him wrong, claiming no matter how much he tried, she wouldn't back down.

The moment he agreed to train her, he was certain that she would fail. He had agreed just because he wanted to have the pleasure of breaking her. To feel powerful once again, a feeling the Guardians had robbed him of a long time ago. But now, he had lost the patience to extend the process so she would break slowly. He was going to break her now. She should have known better than to mess with the wrong person. She wasn't going to get away with all of this. He would prove his superiority.

 _He wouldn't be a helpless man again._

"Then, I will make sure you can't rise again."

Somehow, through all the pain, he managed to flick the wrist of his injured arm, sending a wave of black sand on Pennywise, the force passing through the clown's head in one swift motion. Pennywise let go of Pitch's arm and let out an animalistic howl before he dissolved in a cloud of black crystals. Pitch shot up to his legs just as Angel reacted by sending two beams of crystals his way.

Angel's eyes widened as the Boogeyman raised his arms above his head, a giant wave of Nightmares raising behind him. It passed through the two beams she had sent his away as if they were mere toothpicks and came crashing down on her. She raised a wall of crystals the last minute and gritted her teeth as she tried to hold it against the force of the Nightmares.

She didn't make it.

The wave of Nightmares broke through the small wall and she was pushed to the ground. Sprawled out as she was, she had no way of protecting herself from what followed. The nightmare sand invaded her mouth, slipped on the inside of her eyes, closed her nose and blocked all sounds. Her body arched on the ground, trying to escape but unable to move.

She lost contact with the world around her. She couldn't hear, she couldn't see, she couldn't feel anything other than the nightmare sand. She felt as if she was drowning. Drowning in fear, a fear that was solid as the sand in an hourglass, filling her lungs and replacing the air inside. She could only see black and for a moment, she thought that she was experiencing how death really was.

That was until the voices started. Screams surrounded her, cries for help and wailing. So much wailing. What terrified her to the core was the fact that it all belonged to her. Those screams were hers, the cries, the wailing, all of it. It was her. And then, she wished she could still see the darkness. Because in its place, shapes took form, a fire erupted and the true nightmare began. The images were changing fast. Every fear she could recall, every doubt and insecurity she could remember having in her life, it all played before her.

Over and over and over.

And all of that, all of it, always ended with one specific image before it started again. The image of her, isolated in a cold, dark cave, curled in a ball on the stone floor, crying and screaming with the memory of a family gravestone carved in her mind's eye. And there was no one in the darkness to comfort her. No one to hold her, to tell her it was going to be okay. She was all alone in that cave, alone with two tooth boxes lying in a corner, what few memories she could remember playing inside of them, filling the darkness with laughter and joy that each time ended with the roar of flames and pained screaming.

Her throat felt sore, but she knew for a fact that it wasn't because of the sand attacking her from the inside. No, she knew, she was certain, that her throat was sore because of her own long, blood-chilling scream that kept going the longer the nightmare in her head played. She wanted to stop, to give her throat a rest, but just as the nightmare, her scream kept tearing out of her throat and echoing around the forest she could no longer feel around her.

 _He is going to kill us! I'm taking over!_

 _No, I won't let you-_

 _You don't have a choice this time!_

Pitch could clearly hear her screaming over the roaring of the Nightmares. Her fear was washing over him in waves, reminding him how it felt when he had taken all the children's beliefs from the Guardians ten years ago. It also helped soothe the pain from his still bleeding arm. A triumphant smirk formed on his lips as he watched the black mass of nightmare sand swarming like bees over the source of the screaming. The deep, raw pain in that scream was clear as day to his ears.

A sound resembling an explosion interrupted the screaming and shook the trees around, making Pitch flinch, his smirk slipping from his face. A purple light appeared in the midst of black sand, shining brighter by the second. The nightmare sand was pushed back as the light rose in the air, a thick coil of black crystals swirling all around it, creating protective barriers that forced the sand even further away.

Pitch shielded his eyes from the light with his good hand, trying to distinguish what this light's source was. Once his eyes had started to adjust to the blinding light, he managed to make out Angel's figure in the middle of the light, its source seeming to be some form of jewelry around her neck, probably a necklace. He didn't get the time to weigh his options when Angel shot her arms away from her body, spreading both light and crystals in all directions.

The assault left his wave of Nightmares trapped beneath a layer of black crystal for a couple of seconds before thin cracks started forming on it, pure purple light pouring out of them until the whole thing exploded in his face, sand, crystals, and light shoving him back. Pitch yelled in surprise as he soared through the air, smashed against a tree with a force that broke it in half and at last landed roughly on the ground. On his injured hand.

Hissing under his breath from the pain, he slowly pushed himself to stand up, clutching his bleeding arm as if it would help him ease the pain.

"You really thought it was going to be that easy?"

Pitch snapped his eyes up, but the dust that had risen from the explosion prevented him from spotting her. He didn't need to see her in order to understand that something was off, though. Her voice sounded different. Deeper, with an undertone of echo, and much, much angrier. Vicious even.

"You truly believe that I wouldn't be able to fight against my own fears? Who do you think keeps the darkest of fantasies at bay?"

The dust was slowly settling down, allowing Pitch to vaguely make out Angel's silhouette calmly approaching him.

"How many of them do you think exist? Who do you think fights and overpowers them every day? Who, do tell, is in control of them? You claim to know true fear, but I know true terror."

Pitch prepared to shoot a blast of black sand her way the moment the sand would completely settle down. "If you believe that I should be scared of you, you are more naive than I thought."

The moment the words left his lips, he found himself pinned against a tree, a glass grip keeping him pinned to the spot, while simultaneously closing his air pipe and blurring his vision. The only thing his wide eyes could see was purple light once again and he was slightly aware of small pointy objects pressing against the skin of his neck.

"God damn right, you should be scared of me!" she roared, applying more pressure to his throat.

Pitch instinctively raised his injured arm to the grip around his throat in an attempt to pry it off of him, his other hand acting more rationally and gathering some nightmare sand, enough to push her away from him.

Angel was aware of the black sand gathering around his hand, but she was so focused on the grip she had on his neck that she couldn't bother to pay attention to anything else. The nightmare she had just been through kept replaying in her head, strengthening her grip on him by the second. Her mind was blank except for one thing.

 _Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill._

 _Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him._

 _Add more pressure. More. More. More._

 _Kill him and end this nightmare!_

The feeling of something liquid running down her arm stilled her body and mind. Her eyes snapped to the Boogeyman's hand that was wrapped around her wrist, finally noticing for the first time the gruesome assault it had taken.

 _No! I'm so close! Don't push me back now! Just a little more! He's going to attack-_

Angel pulled away from Pitch before he had time to shoot his sand at her. The Boogeyman barely managed to hold onto the tree behind him to keep from falling to his knees in front of her. He didn't clutch his throat or cough. He just took deep breaths, as calmly as possible. Regaining his composure. He glared dangerously at her through half-closed lids, but the look disappeared from his face in an instant when she spoke.

"You're hurt..."

The incredulous look he gave her didn't surprise her that much. She was caught off guard by the soft tone her voice had taken as well. What did surprise her, though, was the snarl that took over his features in a matter of seconds. "You have the nerve to mock me right in my face after-"

"Why would I mock you about something like that?!" she exclaimed, motioning towards the torn flesh of his arm in exasperation, unable to understand how he was ignoring the presence of such injury. "This isn't some random scratch, your arm looks like it was munched up by a shark!"

"Funny, it looked more like that clown servant of yours!" he spat, clearly getting angrier with every word that left her mouth. He was convinced that she was playing dumb to spite him and with great success. But the horrified expression that spread across her face at the mention of the clown made him question both her sanity and his assumptions.

"You...you're saying that Pennywise...did this to you?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper as her brain was trying to recall when that had happened. She had no memory of witnessing that injury being inflicted upon Pitch, but she could clearly remember the clown attacking him. The only reasonable explanation she could come up with was that she had been in such need of rest that she had focused more on getting herself on her feet than paying attention to her surroundings until it was too late.

"You honestly expect me to believe that you had no idea that monster almost tore off my arm?!" he growled.

"Pitch, I swear, as crazy as it sounds, I never saw it happen!" she said, raising her hands in surrender in front of her. "The only thing I wanted was him to buy me some time to rest and it seems that I was so engrossed in doing that I never noticed him injuring you."

"Terrible excuse, Myth."

"I never meant for this to happen!" she countered, eyeing his bleeding arm worriedly. She didn't know whether spirits could die of blood loss, but she hoped that wasn't the case. No matter how infuriating the Boogeyman was, she had no intention of killing him. "I only wanted him to attack you, not eat you for breakfast!"

"I clearly heard the words 'Feast away' from your mouth before he attacked me!" he exclaimed, taking a step towards her and hissing at the pain that shot through his arm with the movement. Angel's fingers twitched instinctively to help him but for reasons unknown to her, she refrained from doing so.

"I didn't mean that literally!" She groaned at how stupid that sounded and decided to give her attention to a more pressing matter. Glancing at his arm, she almost winced at the sight. "Let me see if I can do anything to fix this."

Pitch backed away from her outstretched hand as if she had burned him, moving closer to the nearby shadows of the forest. "I'd very much rather not. You've done enough already."

"Wait!"

Pitch slipped in the shadows of the forest before she could protest any further, leaving her alone between the trees. His departing words left a bitter taste in her mouth. She wasn't ashamed to admit that she felt guilty. No matter how much she wanted to hurt him every five minutes since their first encounter, he didn't deserve what had happened to him. No one did, in her opinion. Sure, she had no idea that Pennywise had done such a thing, but he was her creation. She was responsible for him.

She felt the need to follow him, to try to set things right, but decided against it. Judging by the look he had given her before leaving, it was best to let him be for a while. He was angrier than any other time she had seen him. He had looked almost murderous and it had unsettled her. A lot. Then again, the bitten arm was a very good excuse for his behavior, she supposed.

 _Damn, I really feel bad about this._

She absentmindedly sat on the ground by a tall tree, leaning her head against it.

 _How could I be so careless? I was so tired that I didn't think to keep one of my own creations under control? That's unacceptable no matter how I look at it. Having control over my powers is something I should have learned to do under any circumstances by now. Instead, I let my guard down and as a result, Pitch was injured. Without me wanting that in the first place. He had every reason to attack me the way he did afterward._

She closed her eyes when memories of what the nightmare sand showed her came to mind.

 _He really wanted to kill me then, I'm sure. My very soul was in pain from all that fear. That doesn't compare to how I originally died. Being burned alive, from what I recall, was a child's play compared to that. No, that...that felt like a never-ending death. My whole body was on high alert from the fear, at the brick of shutting down completely from the overwhelming adrenaline but never quite reaching that point. I wished I died. I wished that all that fear would become a bit stronger, enough to finally kill me, but it just wouldn't listen. It kept me there, at the edge, but never beyond that._

 _That's the worst way to go._

She raised her hand to take a good look at it, making sure no sign of crystals was on it.

 _You shouldn't feel remorse about losing control. If it wasn't for me, he would have killed you._

 _Whether you get out or not is my decision to make. I've never lost control over you before, it shouldn't have been different today either._

 _You were too afraid to control anything, let alone me. This is how it should be. When things are too much for you to handle, I should be the one to handle them-_

 _No, if you get out, it's because I can still control you from the background. I'm never letting you rampage of your own free will again._

 _I'd like to see you try._

Angel's internal argument was interrupted by a low growl to her right. Turning her head towards the sound, she came face to face with a black werewolf bending down to be on the same level as her. "Lycaon?"

"The Warren is secured, mistress." the werewolf, Lycaon, responded in a deep, gruff voice.

Normally, she would be extremely satisfied with the news, but with all that had happened earlier, her mind was elsewhere. So, the only response she could manage at the moment was a soft 'good' and a nod of her head.

Lycaon thought it was an odd reaction for her, a thought that he expressed by raising his ears in surprise. When he saw her turn away from him to look at the forest around them, clearly lost in her own thoughts, he decided to brush it off and left for the cave.

Once he was gone, Angel felt empty. Just like so many other times during those ten years she had spent alone in that cave. The only difference now was that she had her family's memories. The ones she had yet to watch, that is.

Summoning her crystals on her hand, she commanded for them to bring her Emily's tooth box. When the golden box appeared in her hand just moments later, she took a deep breath and made a decision. She would watch all of them this time. After all, she was tired of aching for the loss of her daughter while having so little memories of her. No matter how much it would hurt to remember what she had lost, she would watch them.

She wanted to remember how things were when her baby girl was around.

* * *

 **I am very very sorry for being away for so long, guys! First, it was exams at my university, then the COVID 19 problem and a bunch of other stuff that kept me away from this fanfic. I want to thank all of you for the wait and apologize again for such a long wait.**

 **I, most certainly, won't take that long to update again, because I will make sure to keep myself motivated and with as much inspiration as possible. If you want to help with that, I believe you all know how to do that. Reviews and comments of any kind are always the best way for that and, of course, are always welcome! Let me know if you have any questions and if you think that Pitch's character here needs any improvements.**

 **With that being said, I hope you liked this chapter and make sure to read the following to understand a few things that might be confusing.**

 ***Merde is the french word for the curse Shit/Fuck. Angel's use of the language will be explained later on, so no worries about that!**

 **Lycaon is the name of a king in ancient greek mythology, the king of Arcadia. Long story short, he was very religious and always made sacrifices to the Greek Gods. At some point, he started making human sacrifices, which enraged Zeus. As a punishment, Zeus turned Lycaon into a werewolf, as well as his sons. So, Lycaon is said to be the first werewolf in the history of this supernatural being.**

 **Until the next chapter, everybody!**


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